In the Woods

[Christopher Miller]

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m244/CAMiller290/BPN/P6200179ResizeWeb.jpg

Took this in the woods back behind our house. Honestly, I'm not sure if this makes a good photo or not; would like your opinions on it. Any C&C are welcome!

Olympus SP-550 UZ
f6.3 @ 1/8, ISO 200
Manual mode, pattern metering, cloudy WB
Processed in PS CS2; slight crop, curves adjustments, channel mixer, color fill layer and hue/saturation to create the sepia tone, selective color to add contrast, shadow/highlight, and added a bit of a vignette

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Christopher,
Well, I won't say it blows me away.......but I do find it appealing. It's not the easiest thing in the world to do and try to capture the feel/mood of a forest. You balanced the trunks and the greenery well here with decent seperation of the trunks and nice job minimizing the tops. A few suggestions that may strengthen this image.....first i would remove the twig protrusions at the bottom edge of the frame. I would then try playing around with some selective contrast tweaks or even dodging and burning to further build on the layers and textures. For me, the strength of a B&W is the tonal range.......tweaking that a bit further will definitely help here. I like your choice of sepia too as it just adds another nice feel to this. Not sure the tweaks will make this a "Wow" image......but I think it has potential to get close.

[Christopher Miller]

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m244/CAMiller290/BPN/P6200179ResizeWeb2.jpg

Thanks Roman. I removed the twigs at the bottom as suggested and tweaked the contrast with several curve layers. Does this look better, or do I need to tweak it some more?

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Christopher,
Definite improvement.....but I think you could go further. I will try a tweak tomorrow.....but do you have silver efex?.....I don't, but have seen some very good results using it....especially for B&W's. Go crazy with the dodge and burn tool for now.......which is the approach I will take......and let's see what we can come up with.

[Christopher Miller]

Hi Roman,
No, I don't have silver efex, but looks very interesting. Maybe someday I can afford to get it. Thanks for your help. Am curious to see what you can do with this.

[Robert Amoruso]

Chris,

If Roman does get to it first, I have Silver Efex and will give it a go tomorrow.