Winter landscape with tree.

[David Cowling]

This tree is a 180 mile drive from my home but I always make a point of visiting it in winter if I am in the vicinity. I first found it 4 years ago and have thought about photographing it in these conditions ever since. Three weeks ago it happened. It was always my intention to create a B&W image.

Panasonic Lumix LX 100. Lens at 24mm. Handheld.

1/80 sec @ f13. ISO200. ACR and CS6. Converted to mono using the sliders in Adjustments> Black and White in CS6. The image looks best on a black background.

[Diane Miller]

Very nice -- a classic composition!! I love the sweep of the tree and clouds, with the pile of rocks leading up to the tree and the base of the white clouds echoing the horizon of the snowy ground.

My thought would be not going quite so dark in the upper left, but that's just preference.

Did you do this an an adjustment layer? (Layer > New Adjustment Layer) That gives you great flexibility in tweaking settings after the fact, and lets you tweak tonalities in the BG and have them affect the B/W adjustment layer.

[Grady Weed]

Nice work David. I agree with Diane on the upper left being so dark. Otherwise, very nice, composition wise too. TFS.

[Adhika Lie]

Beautiful, David. I adore the composition. Like Diane said, this is classic. And the B&W work is awesome. I am wondering about the "halo" on the trees though.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi David, I agree on the darkness in the upper left...a very nicley composed scene and B&W conversion is very effective for the image. I am wondering if you could have chosen a lower perspectve to potentially eliminate the lower branches of the tree from merging with the horizon?

[Don Railton]

Hi Dave, Congratulations on an excellent image, and especially so since it's conception was preplanned... I love the concept and and the composition in the main, but now to the nitty gritty bits.. I agree that the dark patch top LHS should go or be lightened. Its seems very obvious that this dark cloud that finishes at the tree but not behind or to the right hand side is unnatural aside from the fact that the eye is drawn there. I also agree with Andrew that a bit of POV adjustment might have been better so the branches do not cut the horizon. Isolation of elements is commonly put forward as "good practice" with landscapes, think it would help here. The good new is you can get the virtual chain saw out to fix this quite easily however. I also see that the top of the tree has branches that are lighter (also with lighter parts of their immediate BG) than the branches lower down ...and that a lot of the branches seem either over sharpened or had a the contrast cranked up a fair bit. Sometimes less is more...

well done anyway, this image is def worth a bit of effort to redo, and improving your masking skills will help I believe..

DON

[David Cowling]

Thank you for the kind comments and the helpful suggestions to improve the image. Andrew and Don, agree about the pov but not able to get any lower as I was resting the camera on top of a wall built to keep sheep from straying onto the road, may well try a bit of 'virtual chainsaw' before it goes on to the print stage. The dark cloud LH is in fact dark blue sky which I pushed a bit too much with the red slider. I have attended to this and the lighter halo behind the tree. The light on the branches at the top of the tree is actually snow sticking to the bark. David

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[Don Railton]

Much better David... but get out that chainsaw!

[dankearl]

I like the clouds a lot and the tree makes for a nice composition.

[Don Lacy]

Wonderful image David the repost does it for me