Waterfall Critique

[Steve Martin]

Here goes my first post on BPN. I must admit, I'm a bit intimidated by the outstanding images/photogs on this site. We recently spent a week in the mountains of NC & Tenn shooting waterfalls/creeks. I'm looking for comments/critiques of the following images. Feel free to be brutally honest, I can take it :) Several things I learned on this trip.
1. Must have a GND filter
2. Must have a ND filter
3. Don't leave the "heavy" tripod at home, light one doesn't work well.
4. Bracket exposures

Images taken with Mark III & 24-105

1. Original Image (28mm - 0.3s - F11)
http://wild-captures-photography.smugmug.com/photos/575546023_R7CRv-XL-1.jpg

2. Selective Desaturation (28mm - 0.6s - F16)
http://wild-captures-photography.smugmug.com/photos/578747826_Az29U-XL-1.jpg

3. Tighter Shot (28mm - 0.5s - F11)
http://wild-captures-photography.smugmug.com/photos/578747416_xWXM4-XL-1.jpg

Entire gallery can be viewed here http://www.wildcaptures.com

Thanks for looking!

[Jay Gould]

Hi and welcome to BPN.

I certainly like your original capture!

You four point self-critique is spot on; however without your capture data the pros here - not me! - are limited to evaluating only composition/PP.

Cheers and welcome, Jay

[joel quenneville]

Welcome to BPN, Steve!

Good job on blurring the water, I love those silky rapids. You have an interesting composition, here a a few tips to improve it.

- Crop some from the bottom and right. Wide angle lenses are notorious for distorting the size elements that are very close to the lens. I think this is what is happening here. I find that the lower part of this image is a bit overwhelming. I would suggest switching to an 8*10 aspect ratio an cropping somewhat below where the river touches the frame on the left. You will probably have to remove some foliage from the right to balance the crop from the bottom.

- Although the fallen tree trunk adds some interest to the photo, I find that it also leads my eye out of the frame. If you are OK with using Photoshop, I would suggest removing at least the top part of the trunk so that it no longer touches the edge of the frame.

What height wast this taken at? Standing? Crouching? Even if you decide not to take the picture, I recommend looking through your viewfinder as you change your height. Sometimes, you will be amazed how much nicer the composition is a foot higher or lower.

Well done. Looking forward to seeing more of your images here on BPN!

[Robert Amoruso]

Steve,

Welcome to the forum. Joel had some good comments but the one I agree with the most is the fallen tree. Diagonals can be strong in an image but I think it does work here to lead the eye out of the image. IF it was at the bottom and say entering the image from the corner at a diagonal, that would be stronger. Your third image is the strongest IMO as it concentrates on the best part of the falls. I also like the almost B&W look of the rocks and the green of the trees. Shutter Speed good for the silky water affect. I like that you have the water leaving the frame in a corner.

Sharpness in good in the BG but soft at the FG rocks. I like the framing and comp but would shave a bit off the left to get rid of the clipped vertical tree. Suggest you clone some foliage over the diagonal tree so its trunk is not going out of the frame onthe left.

I reposted a version of the first post. I would suggest in the third post use Shadows/Highlights to open up the shadows and saturate the green channel a bit more to create a more starker gray to green treatment.

1) Shadow/Highlight in PSCS3 with the following settings. Shadows, 50/25/30 - Highlights, 50/50/30.
2) Selective Color and added 4 points to the black and neutral colors to add some POP.
3) Levels correction and moved midtone slider to lighten it up.

A polarizer can be a big asset here to remove the highlight reflections on the rocks. If you buy one make sure to get a circular and not linear polarizer as AF will not work with linear.

More here for steps 1 and 2 above: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=20434 (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20434).

For future posts, please limit images to one per post in a thread. If you want us to look at an alternate crop, do so by adding a new reply to the thread.

[Robert Amoruso]

Steve,

Tweaked the third image below as follows:

file:///C:/Users/WILDSC%7E1/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg1) Shadow/Highlight in PSCS3 with the following settings. Shadows, 45/30/30 - Highlights, 50/30/30.
2) Curves adjustment with reverse s-curve.
3) Selective Color and added 4 points to the black and neutral colors to add some POP and 4 points to the white to tone it done.
4) Hue/Saturation and added 10 points to the green saturation.

As you try these corrects watch what they do to the image and that will reveal why I did them but in a nutshell:

1) S/H - open shadows and tone down highlights.
2) Reverse s-curve lowers contrast but here it made the image flat.
3) Selective color and adding black adds punch back into image w/o increasing contrast.
4) Saturate greens because I think it looks cool.

[Steve Martin]

Jay - Joel - Robert
Thanks for the comments and suggestions, this is the reason why I joined BPN. As for the tree, I couldn't agree more. I so wanted to move it out of the way but wasn't feeling like Superman at the time. My PS skills are limited so cloning items with a lot of surrounding elements is still difficult, nothing that a little practice won't fix.

Joel - Thanks for the tip about moving while looking through the viewfinder, I'll give that a try.

Robert - Thanks for all the details and taking the time to share. One of the big disappointments when looking at my shots was the lack of depth. I was so focused on water movement I failed to notice the other details. Unfortunately, I only get to make this trip once a year but I'll be better prepared next time. I'll make sure I follow the posting rules next time :)

[David Thomasson]

Hi Steve, and welcome! I think you nicely captured a scene that has lots of potential. In a shot like this, I'm not at all reluctant to "mess with
Mother nature," though some aren't quite so comfortable doing that. I think you put your finger on it when you mention lack of depth.
You can restore a sense of depth by playing around with the light. The larger branches and leaves at top extend into the foreground, so I
brightened them to make them stand out from the darker leaves in the background. Similarly for rocks ... brighter where the light falls (or where I decided
it should fall), darker in shadow areas. I used mainly just two curves adjustment layer, one to brighten and one to darken. You could play endlessly with
various combinations of lighter and darker -- and learn a lot in the process.

This animated gif will make clearer what I'm getting at (650K ... wait for it to load):

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/7711/waterfall2.gif

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Steve,
I like Robert's re-post of your original the best. Nice job on the self evaluation and good comments given above. I like the way you have framed it and the water flow leads us nicely through the scene. Welcome to the forum and look forward to more of your posts.
PS I'm not a huge fan of the selective desat....but that is a personal choice.

[Steve Martin]

David,
Thank you for your comments and repost. I love the way you have added the depth that was missing. You stated you mainly used 2 curve adjustments, did you do anything else to bring out the light in the rocks? It appears there is now light where there wasn't before (which I like).

[Steve Martin]

Roman,
Thanks for the comments, I agree Robert's re-post is much better than the original. Landscapes are a new journey for me and I have lots to learn. I look forward to learning from the extraordinary talent here.

[David Thomasson]

David,
Thank you for your comments and repost. I love the way you have added the depth that was missing. You stated you mainly used 2 curve adjustments, did you do anything else to bring out the light in the rocks? It appears there is now light where there wasn't before (which I like).

Thanks, Steve. The curves layer adjusted to brighten will add some light where it was originally lacking. Brighten the whole image, invert the mask (Ctrl+I)
and paint with white where you want to apply brightening.

I also augmented a few places by painting on a blank layer in overlay mode. Set brush opacity to about 10% and paint with white or very light hues
consistent with what you're brightening (green for leaves, brown/orange for rocks, etc).