Sour Milk Falls, Easedale, Cumbria UK

[Frank Clark]

Late Autumn sunny walk.
D80 + 18-200VR lens. F22 at 1/20 using Monopod.
C & C would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Frank

[Douglas Bolt]

What a beautiful scene. Makes me want to get out my walking stick. The composition is spot on and the light is great. I do wish that you could have used a slightly longer shutter speed to get a little more blur in the falls. However, 1/20 with a monopod is pretty good. I attempted to enhance the feeling of moving water with a little motion blur, but it falls far short of the look produced by say a 1 sec shutter speed.

Other PP tracks: Added Screen blending layer at 40% opacity to enhance contrast, +12 saturation in the yellows to give a little more luster to the greens, used Select Color/highlights with a mask to limit the selection to the waterfalls and added a Linear Burn blend layer at 50% opacity to reduce the feeling of blown highlights in the water and used the same mask to add the motion blur (-17 deg & 11 pixels) to simulate rushing water.

I'm not real happy with my fake blurred water. Probably better initially. Anyway, it is a great scene that I really enjoyed seeing. Plus, it much cheaper for me to tinker with this image than to go to the Lake District to see it for myself. Thanks!

[Gerald_Gilligan]

I would love to come across this scene,
I would like to see a wider view to the right, It may have been cropped out, but a pano to show the grandeur of this valley with the water fall carrying the eye to the right could keep me interested and wanting more... Maybe this was the only composition and I do like it...
I like the re post as it seems that Douglas has a great command of the PS controls, The blur isn't really bad as it is hard to recover the blown highlights in water. Here is another plug for HDR, which could have made for a more natural look to the water or a Neutral Density filter might have allowed for a slower shutter if that was your intent...

Jerry

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Nice place. Light does'nt look so favourable though. Liked the composition. Douglas' re-post is making it look better.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Frank,
Considering the lighting.........you handled the exposure on the water pretty well........although a more overcast day may have been a bit better. Compositionally I agree with Gerald and would add that if it was at all possible........moving a bit forward to achieve more of a looking down into the valley.......while adding even a bit more of the falls........may have helped strenghten compositionally even more. Overall, a pleasing scene and Douglas's re-post adds a bit of punch. My final recommendation is solely up to you and i bring it up for you to explore.........cropping a bit horizontally off the top....to remove the mountain v in the upper right........and also Horizontally off the bottom.to just above the yellowish grasses on the bottom right rock.......strengthens it a bit compositionally for my tastes....but check it out for yourself.

[Frank Clark]

Thank you all for your comments - lots of food for thought! Douglas - I will experiment with your PS ideas on my original. I will also play around with cropping/composition. I agree that HDR and/or a Pano would add to this view.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Frank

[Paul Marcellini]

You got some great ideas already, definitely a beautiful scene worth revisiting if possible.

[Robert Amoruso]

Frank I like how Douglas punched up the image but the increase in contrast is too much. I reposted here using a mild reverse s-curve in a curves adjustment to lower that contrast and make the reworked image look more pleasing.

Composition wizeI feel you did well and though a pano may have showed more of the valley I am very happy with this comp. When I first opened the image I thought " how different - a waterfall flowing into the image, downhill and into a valley below". Very different and very effective. Well done.