Sunrise Advice Please

[Dexter247]

The sun in the first image has burnt out and I have tried with my limited PP skills to clone heal and paint to tone it down, but none of my efforts look very natural and I have resorted to cropping out most of the sky.
What I would like to know is the first image retrievable or should I be content with the cropped image.
I have Photoshop Elements 11 as my editor.

wible by Chris Talbot (1958), on Flickr

wible2 by Chris Talbot (1958), on Flickr

 

[Steve-T]

I'm afraid you have clipped (over exposed) the highlights which means that that part of the image is pure white so any 'toning down' will just make it grey.
It is a shame because it looks like it would have been a really nice shot.

For future reference if you are shooting a similar kind of shot where you can expect a greater dynamic range than the camera sensor can deal with you need to take two or more images at different exposures to make sure you capture all the detail. So as a minimum you would take an exposure for the foreground and one for the sky. Bear in mind that the sun still needs to look a little bright or else it will not be realistic so perhaps expose for the sky to one side of the sun.

Then you need to blend the two (or more) images using software such as photoshop or HDR software. Personally I prefer manual blending but this is a little more complex (though not difficult) though i think usually more realistic than HDR.

When I do go for HDR I prefer http://www.sns-hdr.com/ which i always finds renders more realistically than Photomatix

 

[swanseamale47]

I've had a little play with it bus as Steve says the suns blown right out, pity it's a nice shot too.
This is about the best I could get quickly, probably more or less what you got playing with it.

 

[jerry12953]

I find that any shot with the full face of the sun included looks unreal on digital, even fairly close to sunset. It was bad enough with film but as far as I can see it is even worse in digital.

If anyone can persuade me otherwise, I'd love to know what the answer is!