Portugal - The face of the woods

[Luis Patacao]

Hi, this one is one of my favourite places from Portugal, Serra do Gerês. It`s almost a magical and preserved place full of surprises.
This one is a HDR of 4 exposures close to the sunset.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3924/15115427220_63f97b2559_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/p2GvU9)Face of the woods (https://flic.kr/p/p2GvU9) by Patacão (https://www.flickr.com/people/72412984@N04/), on Flickr

D7000 + sigma 10-20 at 11mm f8, 1/13s ISO 200.
Photomatix for the base HDR, then tweaked with luminosity masks in photoshop.

Critiques are very welcomed! :)

[Don Railton]

Hi Luis..

l will start by saying I am not a fan of HDR normally because of the unrealistic colours they can produce. You seem to have avoided this in the main and the colours look very natural. Well done to you in this respect. What I can see however is the BG sky looks very patchy in its gradient, maybe as a result of the HDR treatment? Morkel presented a sunset image through trees recently which had a beautiful colour gradient, a very good example of what can be done. I am also not too keen on the distortion of the inward leaning trees. The setting is beautiful..

regards

DON

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Luis, I like the scene, but as Don mentions the sky looks patchy, especially in the upper right corner.

[Luis Patacao]

Hi Luis..

l will start by saying I am not a fan of HDR normally because of the unrealistic colours they can produce. You seem to have avoided this in the main and the colours look very natural. Well done to you in this respect. What I can see however is the BG sky looks very patchy in its gradient, maybe as a result of the HDR treatment? Morkel presented a sunset image through trees recently which had a beautiful colour gradient, a very good example of what can be done. I am also not too keen on the distortion of the inward leaning trees. The setting is beautiful..

regards

DON

Hi Don and sorry in the delay for the answer. Thanks for the feedback, as for the patchy sky its something i cant overcome in PP.. I ll have to be more careful for the next ones, to avoid this.

[Luis Patacao]

Hi Luis, I like the scene, but as Don mentions the sky looks patchy, especially in the upper right corner.

Thanks for the feedback Andrew, as for the sky i`ve answer in the previous reply.

[Morkel Erasmus]

I like your perspective and composition here.
I do feel the HDR look is present in the luminosity and the unnatural-looking colours I see peeping through. I'd be keen to see a comparative version that was blended manually with masks in Photoshop?