Wow. Could you make a tutorial for this one? I'll sign up for a year subscription then, I promise. (I bought the baby book already, with great results!)

Fantastic composition. The colors are very pleasing. Nicely done!

from a relatively boring original, you've produced an absolutely breathtaking image. A question, when you're taking the shot, can you see the finished result in your mind? or does that all come to you when you sit down and start editing? just curious as I'm not sure i could have ever imagined it looking like this if i'd been taking the shot! brilliant work Dave.

Very striking. Might I guess you have perhaps converted the image to B&W, and then used selective saturation layers to tone the foreground and background differently? I'm not sure how you would have masked or selected the two parts; the warm tones appear on each wire of the guardrail. Love the lighting and composition.

dfp asks an interesting question; do you take the photo to experiment on or do you have ideas of what you want to do with it and that's why you take the shot?

You gave the image life with the post processing. Well done.

I'm always blown away by your work in post. This shot is no exception, David.
I'll be signing up to your tutorials in the next few weeks once I've finished this term at Uni and I have some time to concentrate on shooting my own stuff.

just wow! i love all the texture, the color and tones, but most of all fluid lines. the lines really make it such a strong composition. great find.

what a matching title! great!
I wish to see this larger, maybe on my desctop as a wallpaper :)

Very cool

beautiful postprocessing. great work!

Great pp, Dave. I found the comparison between the two imagese very interesting , 'cause I'd probably had trashed the original image, without attempting any processing. The strenght and the mood given by your reinterpretation to an apparently flat and boring image is amazing. Bravo.

I came across your site whilst looking for a blog host and became a fan of your photography straight away. I too use Canon gear, albeit just a humble 5d. If I can achieve images like this one I will be more than pleased.

Beautiful! The blue and tan tones in this one are fantastic compliments. The clarity and the depth just add even more to this photo. Well done!

I like how the eyes follows the railing and then goes off in an angle on the right side.

Bonjour,
Nice composition..Great treatment..bravo!

Thanks all.

dfp: In this instance I knew that something like the end result might be possible but it's not always that easy to envisage how the sky will turn out in the final image.

Malcolm: no, in this instance the main adjustments were made using three Curves. One for the foreground and sea, and two for the sky – one for contrast, one for colour.

marco: a few years ago I would have discarded this one too, but having become a bit more adept at post-processing than I used to be I knew that this one had a lot of potential.

I love the edition in this image; the transformation is spectacular. But I don't like the composition at all, with this part of the pier (I guess) on the right...I find it obtrusive. And of course, that's just an amateur's opinion :-)
Good work, David!

Man's weathered, inevitably ephemeral, past attempts to etch their contribution to this planet, courageously steadfast in the face of eternal, natural and immutable beauty.You showcased it perfectly, DJ.

Love it. It's the simplicity that does it. Always harder to put so much effort into making something that lives on its simplicity I think.

It's photos like this (and your pp skills of course) that encourage me to keep all the flat, boring shots. I now just need to set aside a couple of hours to process them..

Sorry for my absense around these parts Dave, and my pre-occupation with a certain game ;)

This shot is wonderful - and I think you'll find an extra customer for your tutorials when I get back home later today. Great stuff, and hope you're all well and you enjoyed your travels :)

Just goes to show much data is retained by those tasty Mark II RAW files (and of course, seeing the potential therein). The sky is fab and I like how the rail traverses the image.

looks like the "300" lightroom action with some levels and blacks tweaking. my fav preset for skies.

hummm... that's great !!

This is a very beautiful picture.
You have a great eye! :)

Lovely image. I too am finishing up with uni and looking forward to taking out a subscription and getting back to shooting.

Nice one. Would love to see this crop up as a PSD in a tutorial but you've probably covered all of the techniques used in the processing of this shot already, I guess.

I love this. The colours feel so comfortable and familiar.