Storms Over the North Sea

Driving down the east coast of Scotland, looking from the high shelf where the A road runs, out across the machair (fully cultivated along here), the storms were impressive. We were in and out of them all day, wet and (more or less) dry. Here they stand off the coast contrasting sharply with the tilled fields below us.

Sony DSC H50 at full wide (31mm equivalent). F4.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Programed auto.

On the first pass in Lr I used Recovery for the sky to good effect. Since then though, I have learned to use the graduated filter effects, and like what they do for a sky like this. I went back this morning and reworked the image. One GF from the top to darken the sky, and one up from the bottom to pick up the foreground (added exposure and contrast). With GFs I use less Vibrance than I have in the past, and slightly less Clarity in Presence panel. Landscape sharpen preset. There was some noise in the clouds, which I filtered out with the Noise Reduction sliders.

From Scotland.