San Francisco from De Young tower

[carylwithay]

taken with an M8 from the top of the De Young museum. That water is the passage to the Golden Gate bridge and SF Bay. I used Capture one 4 to process.
Caryl

[WPalank]

Caryl,
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I feel it needs a little more pop. Your composition is perfect. However, when I think landscape and a pseudo-monochromatic image, I think of the Lab Color space in PS. I do not know if you can access it in Capture 1. I saw your post about Capture 1 in another Forum here and I don't know if you work for or are involved with the company.
I just ran your image through in CS3 (took about 10 seconds) and I feels it adds some more depth to the trees in the foreground and more color to some of the houses. It also cuts the haze in the background.
Do you mind if I post it?

[carylwithay]

Yes, do post it. I was concerned with the shapness. The colors are much better on my computer that when posted. I would like to see how yours come out on my screen. No, I do not work for Capture One. I just love the sharpness it gets. I leave the colors to photoshop. I do like honest comments as opposed to those that just say everything is wonderful. Thank you.
Caryl

[WPalank]

With Lab applied. Results are noticeably better when working with a 16 bit TIFF. The image I was working with was obviously a 8 bit JPEG grabbed from the web. Nice shot!

[stuny]

Much better, but perhaps just a touch lighter overall?

[carylwithay]

OK. Here is my perked up version. On yours, the sky is a bit toosaturated on my screen. Thank you for showing it.
Caryl

[WPalank]

Good one Caryl. The Lab technique is more subtle on 8 bit images. To fix the sky (desaturate), Curves adjustment layer, switch form master to blue channel, put a point in the middle of the curve and and bring the curve down just a slight bit.