A bit more vibrance, please

It’s not going to be much of a sunset I realize, walking onto the pier beside Ambleside Beach. There’s a little colour there, a subtle tinge lingering beneath the pale sky peeking through grey clouds. The ocean shimmers, just a bit, below the horizon.

With little hope of a usable image, I shoot off some tests, mostly to explore framing in case I come back again with better light. Perhaps the pier will work in the foreground? (No, it won’t.) But I’m also thinking, “We’ll see what we can tease out of this light when we get back home.”

In Photoshop, I pick the one shot with promise. Level it and crop the frame. Tease out the colour with a few adjustment layers: levels, curves and vibrance. Tweaks I make on nearly every photograph, though this one calls for a bit more leverage on the tweak knob. Ah, but there it is. Just a little bit more vibrance, please.

That’ll do. Nothing I’ll print for sale, but just enough merit in it to charm. There’s a little magic in the clouds. A moment worth sharing.

There’s a lesson here, a note to self. You’ll never know what charms can be teased from disappointment if you let it defeat you before having a go. Just level your horizon and bump up the vibrance a bit.

The original raw image. Click on it to see it full size, just for comparison sake.