Before and after Camera Raw file. 2 versions

[rcat]

File if anyone is interested was from rawsamples.ch

Original file first , then my attempt using Camera Raw.
Am I on the right track? How would you go about improving the scene? I think I've brought out some details and improved the colour, but what else do I need to focus on?
Any pointers on deciding brightness/exposure levels etc? Would you recommend gradient filters on the water and sky for extra interest?

[$1r_M4x1mu$]

Nice Job rcat

You could get back a bit of contrast and saturation to those colors, seems a bit pale and cold to me, but you know that's just me.

Keep it up.

[Steve]

I think you're going in the wrong direction, you lost a nice sky.
There are several ways to brighten an image, Exposure, Brightness, and Fill light.

I "think" you just used Exposure.
Set them all back to 0 and play with them individually and see what does what.
You want to keep the detail in that nice sky.

You can put that file in a Zip or Rar folder and upload it here, or provide an exact link to the file.
Rawsamples.ch doesn't seem to provide a preview.

[rcat]

Thanks Steve, wow I can't believe I missed how that sky looks, it looks so washed out on my version.
The file does have fill light but it only seems to have made a significant difference to the background buildings, which I suppose isn't what I need.
I should be looking to make the ship stand out more really?
Yes you are right about rawsamples.ch - they don't have previews , (and there are some really boring sample files there too). It was just somewhere I found some raw files I could play with.
I'll sort out the file and post a link up later this evening. Thanks for looking at this for me guys.

[Hoogle]

I would say play with the black level recovery and recovery tool but looking at the image on my screen now even in small preview I can see the sky has developed a lot of noise in it. I dont think the picture needs much editing in the aspect of exposure I like the gloomy look and strong shadows maybe if anything a white balance correction could do the trick.
As far as photoshopping goes though remove the buildings in the background to distracting and dont mix with the warship to well,

[Manuccio]

I'd add a little bitcontrast

[rcat]

Thanks for the comments, plenty to think about.
The file as mentioned is available from RAWSamples - Index
Choose English or Germa language and go to the Nikon section.
It's the Nikon D100 sample (file size 10mb). Would be interested to see what people can do with this.

[Hoogle]

If I was to do it I would add some seagulls lol
Just quickly though but spend more time on it if your going to transform the image completely.

[Steve]

Here's the file if anyone wants to play around.