Reservoir Division

[Dave Blinder]

Round Valley Reservoir, Lebanon, NJ
Dec 2009

This trail on top of a dam divides the reservoir into 2 sections. Taken in later afternoon.

I found processing the sky especially challenging because of mixed lighting. I used the recovery slider to remove some of the whites from the sky. Processed in Photomatix, 3 exposures from a single RAW, finalized in photoshop. I increased saturation overall, but decreased cyans to make the sky less "electric".

All comments and critiques appreciated.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2633/4193845371_c68526422d_o.jpg

Canon 40D, Canon 10-22mm EF lens, UV filter, handheld, AV mode, +2/3s EC

F/13, 10mm, 1/100s, ISO 250

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Dave,
It appears this needs a bit of CW rotation....use the left horizon to judge. Maybe it's an artifact of the HDR blending but you are getting a color shift near the brightest area. I'm thinking that moving in either direction to take the road a bit off center and eliminating the brighter area on the right sky would help strengthen this overall compositionally. Let's see what the others chime in.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Dave, agree about the cw rotation and the image having a color shift. After I looked I'm not sure if I like the idea about removing parts of the road in order to get rid of the brighter area. I would prefer to see it done in post processing since I like the composition...

[Dave Blinder]

Thanks guys, I think the color shift is a product of HDR and also the recovery slider introduced some wacky artifacts. I did use the healing tool to lessen the color shift already, but I will have another go at it.

Since you both agree the brighter area should go... what's the best approach there? Selection/masking via lasso tool and maybe bucketing in the tones from the opposite side? It's going to be tricky to nail the fine transitions with the tree branches...

[Dennis "Curly" Buchner]

Very nice comp, to bad no fall colors

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Dave,
No real easy way in PP'ing......1st pull back on the cyan although it will take a bit of work to get the whites much closer. #1 reason I try to get it right in 1 exposure in the field!