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Golden Touch (12)
mpr Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 143 W: 10 N: 309] (2118)
This a second of about five shots I plan to post from Shell Beach in the Sonoma Coast. The first one is here. This shot was taken a few moments after the first one as the sun was quickly "closing" for the day on the pacific coast. My only regret here is the two rocks and the wave in the background. Unfortunately, they are not kissed by the golden light due to a much larger rock to the right of the frame. Perhaps there is a way I could improve this in PS. Any suggestions? I'm very happy with the foreground so all is not lost. :)

PP: Processed from RAW with photoshop.
Cloned out water spots and smudges (the best I could), re-size for TL, and sharpen.
Altered Image #1

mpr Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 143 W: 10 N: 309] (2118)
Levels and shadow highlight
Edited by:andtine Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 240 W: 69 N: 179] (1107)
Hi Mike, I had a go at bringing out the detail in the rock and sea but it's not easy as there was no golden sun light on them in the first place. However to achieve what I have done I did the following.

1. make a levels adjustment layer and adjusted the levels to bring detail back into the rocks. This made the rest of the picture look very bright, so using a large soft paintbrush with black selected I first clicked on the layer mask for levels and painted out the effect in the places that didn't need it. I then flattened the picture.

2. Next I copied the picture as a new layer and on this used the shadow highlight tool in CS2 again i made adjustments to bring out the detail of the rock. This adjustment also made the rest of the picture bright so I added a layer mask to the copy layer and again using the paint brush and black I painted out the areas that didn't need the effect and flattened the picture.

And that's it.