Toccoa Falls

[Hazel Grant]

A special place in my heart is Toccoa Falls, Georgia. The falls here are 180 ft high. Was there last week again, so snapped a few shots. Only some curves adjustment. This particular shot is not the traditional one showing the whole falls, but I thought it was a new perspective. Liked the initials carved into the tree, too.

[Diane Miller]

If you are interested in critique could you provide some specs? Was it a RAW capture? What processing software?

It's nice to see the falls framed between the trees but I think you might have had the option to bring more detail into both the bright areas of the falls and the darker areas of the trees. Most RAW processing software can go much further that curves for controlling highlight and shadow detail, and can often approach realistic HDR treatments.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Hazel,

The framing is interesting but because of the high contrast...you have lost a lot of detail in the FG and the water. Re-visit this site on a cloudy/overcast/rainy day.....and you will get much better results although the sky tend to get uninteresting. You have kept it minimized....so that shouldn't hurt the overall comp.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Hazel, Roman has summed it up in his critique. Scenes such as this will often produce excellent results on overcast days.

[Hazel Grant]

thanks to all for your help. still learning

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nicely framed Hazel. This would have worked well if you bracketed about 5 stops apart and blended exposures for the final result.
Maximum vertical posting size is 900px. I would like to see one bigger and perhaps double-RAW processed as if you had taken different exposures, all you need is to lift the FG by 1-2 stops and merge the 2 using luminosity masks.
Keep posting and keep learning! Shout if you need help doing the above...