Black Water Refuge

[John Whaley]

New to this forum as my main interest has been Avian but interested in improving landscape skills. This one was taken before sunrise a few weeks ago at Black Water Refuge in Maryland. 1/250, f8, auto ISO-560, +1 ev, 16-80mm f2.8-4, D500. cc appreciated.

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[Adhika Lie]

Hi John! Welcome!

A very nice refuge with that far away island! Unfortunately, I don't like the hue and saturation of the blue in the sky, but it should be easy to fix that in post-processing. I think the image can also benefit from cropping from the bottom so the reflection on the few right most "sticks" in the FG is gone. Otherwise there is too much foreground that makes it hard for me to go into the image. How that midground grass cuts into the horizon is unfortunate and probably could use a little separation but it doesn't bother me as much.

[John Whaley]

Adhika,
Thank you for the feedback. I see what you mean " How that midground grass cuts into the horizon is unfortunate and probably could use a little separation but it doesn't bother me as much." It would be better from a slighty higher angle to create more seperation. Here is a quick edit with a crop to the bottom and reduced saturation in the blue. Better?

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[Adhika Lie]

A lot better John! But I am still wishing the sky to be closer to that of the reflection. Also, be careful with the cloning on the 6th and 7th poles from the right. I would even take one step further to clean the grass from the LR corner there.

[Don Lacy]

Hi John, Nice to see you posting in the landscape forum. I hope you don't mind me working on your image but I find it helps to demonstrate my suggestions. First thing I wanted to do was to crop out the sticks in the foreground I felt they made the image busy and added little to the image. My other thought was the tonal values were a little off the darks were a tad to bright along with the lighter tones so I changed them using luminosity mask to work on them. If your not familiar with luminosity mask let me know and I will send you a link to a great tutorial on what and how to use them. Anyway this is the direction I would have went with the image if it was mine simply cropping out the sticks now simplifies the composition and the reeds provide a path for the viewers eye to travel through the image to the far island. You could also crop from the left some if you wanted to for less of a pano look.

[John Whaley]

Thanks for the feedback and taking the time to work on the image. Much appreciated. Please do " send you a link to a great tutorial on what and how to use luminosity masks"

[dankearl]

I like the crop in pane 3. I think the sticks add to an image where there is not much drama going on.
I would add some saturation to the vegetation.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Agreed I am no expert in landscape so I appreciate why the sticks were originally there but it soon becomes apparent they are not really adding especially when you see the sticks and their reflections, it tends to draw the eyes down. I like the crop in pane 3, I would have probably got there in the end .. with some guidance!

[Morkel Erasmus]

Welcome to landscapes! This is a fun genre and one you can practice pretty much anywhere.
I like the layering here - something about the colour and the midtone/shadow luminosity seems off to me. I'd be interested to see a straight-out-of-camera JPG posted here to compare?

[Andrew McLachlan]

My preference is for Don Lacy's pano crop, but I would take it one step further and crop out all of the blue sky. I do not mind the sticks in the foreground but the image is visually stronger without them. Looking forward to seeing more of your landscapes!