I love this pic... the contrast of the clean bright light on the foreground compared with the foreboding, dark rain-clouds in the background works really well.

2 handheld shots ??
Very nice (contrasts, colors)
Sorry for my poor english

This is very nice, I'd be interested to see the two handheld exposures unedited, although, I can kind of imagine how they looked. I really like the light beams coming down from the sky at left and off in the distance in the center.

Beautiful picture, mastery, I will save it to my "best of chromasia" folder. It would be really interesting to see in one of your tutorials how you post-process a picture like this.

Fantastic Shot! I was amazed when I first saw it, and still amazed. This is totally a great dramatic beach scene. I agree with you Dave, the lighting is awesome! The mystery to me , is how were you able to achieve such good alignment with 2 handheld shot??? What function within photoshop do you use for alignment? I am only familiar with the "Merge to HDR"

Raymond: yes, they were handheld.

Sonny: they're not that interesting. The shot exposed for the sky has a very dark foreground and the other is mostly blown out from the horizon upwards.

Chris: there is a function within Photoshop for aligning two layers. What you need to do is as follows:

1) open the first image and then paste the second image in as a new layer.
2) select both layers.
3) Edit -> Auto Align Layers.

It generally does a pretty good job.

I agree it's a frigging belter.

Extraordinary! I must say that this is probably up there along with some of my other favorites of yours.

Thanks for sharing the auto-align technique. I think I have an idea as to how you post processed it. Was the masking complicated? How many did you use and what part did you use the channel mixer for?

Al: the masking was quite simple, for the most part - just a couple of gradient masks to fade one area into another. As for the remainder of the post-processing - I used four masked curves for contrast and another for colour, the channel mixer across the entire image to boost the colours, and a final Hue/Saturation layer to boost the saturation for the reds

Nice image design with the 'river' of pebbles leading the eye to the stooped figure who's just neatly below the horizon line.

This is stunning.

Nice one. I like the jumble of colors in the pebbles.

Its always a trip back to our roots that makes us realise from where we came.... and to that which inspires us and makes those moments worth capturing..... my favourite in a long while...... csj

Stunning. Great job merging the two photos. I'll definitely have to try this!

It really is surprising how much of a difference the black versus white theme makes. The distortion in forground sand from the 16mm focal length is appealing too. Kind of sucks you into the scene.

A real cracker. I love the way the two directions of the pebbles draw the eye into the image. The slightly 'sickly' colours in some of the pebbles, and the relatively small amount of sky give it a really claustrophobic and oppressive feel. You'd expect Dr Who to materialise on this beach. My only gripe is that the shingle just before and after the breakwater is a little dark and clogged up.

Classic image.

Love this one.
This is the reason I'm coming back here every day:-)
I like the dark corners, it's taking me inside...

Hello Dave,
Makes me want to go to the beach....
Great photo. Sara.

Handsome pebble action - worth a shot alone.

Absolutely gorgeous photograph David.

This is amazing pic!

Love the colour an detail in the pebbles, the light on the horizon and the effect of the WA lens - it feels as though you're being sucked in to the picture - or am I just in need of sleep !?! :-)

Thanks all :-)

Absolutely breath taking. i love love the colors.... just wow

I love the foreground. The colours in the rocks and the way the rocks lead into the background.

The colors in this shot are crazy gorgeous! Especially in the forground stones. The rays of light in back are pretty nice as well ! Beautiful.

Now this is the Chromasia we all like! More of this please.

David
Great picture.

Beautiful view and treatment !