California Dreamin' +rp

I like your title!  I can see why your friends respond to the image.  Maybe it's the dreamy feel that the mist creates, no distinct horizon and a view into infinity.  I thinking living in this area and experiencing it on a regular basis also helps a view relate to the location and image.  While the lighting is flat, that seems vital to create the mood you were after here.  Maybe wish I could see more of the relief of the coast, but probably not visible from this angle and vantage point.  Might consider cropping the very top dark cloud off the top - draws my eye up there a bit too much.  Would hate to be caught on this beach at high tide.

This has a nice mood, Igor. You might consider cloning that dark spot near the bottom of the second cliff. I like the muted color, and the tones. The processing looks real nice to me.
--P

A thought would be to try a square crop removing the darker UR cloud.

A beautiful shorescape with lots of depth.  I like the clarity of the near cliffs and there is just enough detail visibility in the far distant, background shoreline to extend the depth of the scene even further.  Nicely done, Igor!

Igor, it is the combination of dynamics and mystery that bring this image to life for me. I think the diagonals within the square format accentuate the dynamics aptly. The absence of a clearcut horizon keeps me exploring the moving sea vanishing in the distance.

There is only one minor technical aspect I wanted to mention: the edges of the cliffs appear a bit oversharpened to my eye and thereby disrupt the overall atmosphere of the image for me - it should be easy to fix if you go along with that.

Thanks for sharing your experience of this moment!

Peter

You are absolutely right about the haloing, Peter. Unfortunately many of my images have that and it's not that easy to fix. They are formed by using the quick select tool and making adjustments within selected area. This always leaves visible halo between edges with great tonal difference. Recently, less than a week ago, I found settings that will feather and smooth these borders supposedly. The reason these fixes will be difficult to reproduce is that I didn't make these changes with layers. Multiple changes are made to a file before it's saved, without a historical record. My workflow really sucks. 

Living on the gulf coast of Florida I'm always amazed to see the beauty of the west coast.  I can only imagine how nice it would be to be down there on the sand, all alone, to experience it.  I love the depth to this image, like it goes on forever; it lets my imagination run wild.

While I like this a lot to view and enjoy, I don't think I would consider this in the same league as your more artistic images.

Gorgeous and gentle colour palette of opposing hues of around the same strength. Very pleasing to the eye.

So pleasing to view this. Excellent composition and I love the feel / mood this has. The colors are wonderful.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI.

The subdued lighting and colors work beautifully for this seascape, Igor. This has such a relaxing feel to it and I like the way the BG shoreline and cliffs fade into the clouds. My only suggestion would be to clone out that one dark piece of driftwood? I can see why your friends and neighbors enjoy this view.

Ed

Outstanding coastal scenic Igor. For me, this captures the essence of the coast - most especially because of the sea mist/spay that's creating all that atmosphere.  I don't mind, and in fact like the cloud up top - it's not so dark that it's distracting, just a nice dark gray to give the sky/clouds some contrast and definition.

The only suggestion I have would be to reduce the darkness of the tree line(s) on far bluff tops, as well as the darker part of the nearer ridge, at the same height.  The darkness right in that small area takes away, I think, from the overall misty and light atmosphere.

My workflow really sucks.

LOL.. I think we all have our own habits that we haven't bothered to check out of yet and maybe should. ;-)  I was just going to mention that I rarely make selections for the exact reason you mention.  Well, I guess I don't count TK's Luminosity masks... but I think you know what I mean.  In my workflow (please note, does not mean mine is any good, correct, or whatever, so take with grain of salt,) I typically make adjustments on an adjustment layer, whether it's hue/sat, levels/curves, selective color, b&w, etc. etc. - and make the adjustment I want to take care of a specific area. Then I simply mask the changes in or out and then paint them in/out with a soft brush and vary the opacity as needed.  Anyway, I like painting rather than hard selections as I feel at least a tiny bit more creative.  YMMV.

Love the image.

Lon

Beautiful seascape, Igor. Nice balance between moody/stormy and inviting. What I most like is the loneliness of the beach, which adds to the mood and gives this a sense of wildness.  

Lon, good catch on the trees up above. When I blew it up to 300% it showed the my adjustment selection had been sloppy and had included some of the trees. To be honest I know longer remember why I had dodged that cliff below but it caught the trees above. I corrected that to remove the abrupt tone variation in those trees.

I'm not sure which object others were referring to below. There's a tree stump and an overgrown rock. I took a guess and removed the stump.

Beautiful coastal scene, Igor. Love the subdued colors and mood of the image. Excellent image. 

Yep, this is what us "coasters" live for. A really powerful visual statement of my favorite place in the world. You have captured its essence in the most sincere and beautiful manner.