Nice shots, but a bit of over-photoshop going on in the bottom one. Looks like a Dr. Who scene. Hope the bombing in London didn't affect anybody you know. My brother said he was close to the area, but he's alright.

Yeah, it looks more like the Planet Nana than Oze. Was messing around with Curves.

Glad your brother's okay.

Curves? I've always wondered what that function is for. I thought it just turned your shots into fish-eye images. I've started using photoshop for images that I send to www.trekearth.com. I find it all quite baffling, but I've managed to clean up a lot of otherwise scruffy looking shots after a bit of messing around.

It's like a more sophisticated version of Levels, where you can pinpoint specific areas of the image instead of just the 3 tones of Levels. Because it's more sophisticated, it's also harder to use. (As you can see from the Shibutsu picture!)

Photoshop is great though, especially for sorting out your exposure and sharpening your images. I read somewhere that every digital image can do with a bit of sharpening.

"I read somewhere that every digital image can do with a bit of sharpening."

Tis true, but a word of caution....especially with nature shots, as seems to be your wont (and a very nice one at that), one needs to be very judicious, IMHO.....I think you'll see this soon enough if you haven't already, that you can't just apply the same USM setting across the board, you really have to do it image by image (which is too bad, can't just set up a PS action and let it fly). Again all in my HO, but the "more marshes" shot above is over-sharpened, and the first one is only just barely acceptable....with "busy" shots (anything of leaves, or gravel on the ground to take an extreme example), you need to apply only a little sharpening otherwise you end up with a, well, the digital equivalent of a gravelly photo actually, which in digital terms means something very pixellated and basically the antithesis of what most folks want to achieve when they're shooting "nature". (Of course if your aim is to be the Daido Moriyama of Oze then by all means go for it ;). Remember that more than likely your camera is also doing some sharpening. I guess my advice would boil down to, don't overdo it (uh, like that last shot above, with the Curves).

(Contact me offline is you want more pointers....I also have some tips for how to deal with a bright sky and dark foreground like the bottom pic, to wit: http://snipurl.com/g4aw)

Well spotted on both counts Kurt. I have been going for one-size-fits-all sharpening and it doesn't always work by any means. Need to look into using Unsharp Mask.

But even more of an issue for my early stage in the whole photography thing is the second one you mentioned, i.e. bright skies and dark foregrounds, which is what the playing around with Curves was intended to fix. Any help with this would be great because it messes up so many of my photos. (I remember the temple photo from when you posted it on your weblog). Does this need to be done in Photoshop or is there any way of doing it with your camera settings?

yes, in PS....you can adjust for it in the camera but there's only so much a camera, like a human eye, can do....if you expose for the forground, the sky will wash out; expose for the sky and the foreground is too dark. Not sure about digital so you'll need to trian and error to see which one is easier to correct in PS (and looks better). I think a happy medium is best, and then let PS do the rest. I couldn't find the tutorial that got me started with burning/dodging in PS, but this pdf (2+ megs) should get you started (and then some):
http://www.creativepro.com/img/story/120504_PS_adjustment.pdf

Thanks for that Kurt -- exactly what I need to be looking at next.