Many thanks for comments, everybody.
tv and Rod: I myself is unsure which is preferable.
Color version: We do have a lot of dramatic light and postprocessing here is pretty basic: contrast adjustment and unsharp mask. No bumping of saturation was made and dramatic clouds were the reason why I have taken this picture. No effort to lighten the church was made, it is a white building lighted by the last sun rays.
But, the b/w in my opinion has the benefit of higlighting the church more than color, I agree with this
Rod
14-May-2007 07:41
Tommy brings up some good points, when I first got into digital after a 30 year break from photography I was amazed at the over saturated shots I was seeing at this forum. Quite a few posters were running their shots through a Velvia action in PS & receiving glowing praise. I think over the couple of years I've been here I've slowly crept up to giving my shots more colour than is natural looking. Before Tommy's comment below I was favouring the colour shot as I think the land mass looks better in that shot but after reading Tommy's comment I've realised I've been brainwashed here a bit towards really colourful shots. So I have a foot in both camps at the moment:-)
Maybe I would have liked this one better if I didn't see it in color first. Now this one just looks gray. The color works much better for me. -COAmature
You have induced what has the potential of a serious debate - B&W vs color. In this case, I'm on the B&W side. In fact, I find the color version unnatural. The orange cloud on the left vs the blue range of clouds in the middle are overly intense and lack the transitions of hue and intensity that normally follow changes in light and dark in cloud formations. To me, the impact of the B&W is everything others have said about the color - including the church which stands out effectively, but inexplicably as if spotlighted in pp. As a whole, the image is a very lucky catch well executed in beautiful B&W. I hope some others will contribute to this discussion. -tv
