Edit Me - Week 13 {A Dangerous Sea}

The photo for this week's challenge over at My Reflection of Something was so very, very inspiring! It was provided by Amber over at Amber's Articles...and it is a stunning photo without any adjustments to it...and it lends itself to so much creativity!

Amber's Original

Seriously I had so many ideas rolling around in my head, but I choose to do only two of them...a black & white version and a dreamy, dark & stormy version!

Here is what I came up with:

For my black & white version I did the following:

1) I desaturated the photo
2) I did some dodging & burning to add some darkness to the clouds.
3) I went in and created a layer mask & lightened up the boat so that it was more pronounced in the background.

For the color one I did the following:

1) I sharpened with Totally Rad's Sharpen Like a Ninja action
2) I did a curves adjustment layer for the blues in the photo
3) I dodged & burned too add darkness to the rain coming down and the bottom portion of the clouds to add drama to the photo.
4) I lightened up the sails on the boat to help them to stand out more.
5) I then used MCP actions Magic Markers action from the Fusion Action Set on the sky to help it to pop and give it more of a stormy, orange color.
6) Finally I added the quote and a slight vignette.

So isn't the original stunning? And I can't decide which of my edits that I like better...they both are great in their own way!!

Happy Thursday, and don't forget to click on the button below to see the other edits!