Over Ice

[Julie Kenward]

Found this leaf in a frozen creek a few weeks ago. I cloned out a few small pieces of debris and brought up the colors in the leaf a bit but intentionally left the two darker areas as I thought they balanced each other out nicely.

I also added a very pale vignette using a sample of the green from the leaf around the edges of the frame to help pull the eye towards the center of the image.

Canon 40D, EF 70-200mm f/4L
f8 @ 1/640th, ISO 400
Manual mode, handheld, overcast skies
ACR, CS5 & Topaz InFocus for sharpening

[kostas nianiopoulos]

It looks really good to me , and i love the ice cream looking , i see u talk about the topaz in focus , are u with this program ? , i have it too but im not , i have try several programs ways and methods , till now the best for me is the hi pass method for sharpness , but im still not 100% satisfied.

[Julie Kenward]

Kostas, no I don't work for Topaz (but I would if they asked me!) :) I am having very nice results with their program on my water series images and, in most cases, I use the "minor" preset and tweak it from there (either in the program itself or I lower the opacity of the sharpness layer when I go back to PS). I also like high pass sharpening - it can really pop the edges and bring out details - and I also use Smart Sharpen on printing images and USM for web presentations. It all depends on what works best in each case.

[Dave Woeller]

Love the composition and difference in textures. I tried to imagine the shot with the snow rendered whiter, and I'm not convinced that it would be an improvement. This just has a good feel to it as is. My .02 :)

[Julie Kenward]

Dave, I'm so glad you said that...that was the same conclusion I came to. I kept brightening it up and all the texture and little nuances of the ice would get lost so I went back and toned it down, hoping it would be not look too "dirty". I also thought it set the mood for a cold, overcast day.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jules. Nicely seen and photographed! I like the ROT comp and the splash of subdued color that the leaf adds. The slight grayness of the ice looks very natural to me as I often see ice of that shade up here. Well done.

[Brendan Dozier]

Nice comp, like the simplicity. If you did not give a description, I think it could be interpreted as either a cold ice or a warm wet sand enviroment - which I think is cool. Kind of like a perceptual illusion which depends on the viewers environment

[Ken Childs]

Nice find, Jules....you definitely captured a dreary mood with this one. Brendan is right....if you had posted this in summer I would have thought it was a beach! I like this as is but if it were mine, I probably would have cropped a bit from the top. I'm not saying that would be better, just different. Some of the bolder black specks are catching my eye so you might want to clone those out.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice shot Julie I like the composition and the texture. The subtle vignette works a treat.
Been away for a while so I am guessing this Topaz gizmo introduces this kind of textured look? Regards high pass etc what is the difference in Topaz to the one available in Photoshop?

[Julie Kenward]

Jon, the new plug in from Topaz called InFocus specializes in taking blurred images and bringing them into focus. I bought it when they had a special price before Christmas of $29.99 because friends are always sending me some fairly crappy photos of their children and asking "Can you fix this?" I thought it might be worth the small investment for that reason.

What I have found is that it does a fairly good job of creating hard edges with crisp detail and less artifacts - but it doesn't do a great job on every image - so I still use other forms of sharpening as well. What I have discovered is it works beautifully with all my water images - keeping them crisp where they need to be but soft where they don't.

They have a free trial download if you're interested.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks Julie for the info, Topaz did originally send me the info but I thought it was just another marketing ploy and I ignored it, but having read your comments/applications I may just try the freebie.

[Anita Bower]

Great image! I think the graininess/texture of the snow adds interest. The leaf is perfectly positioned and I like that it is green and yellow--not brown--a bit different from usual winter leaf photos. Interestingly, the leaf looks like it has had a paint or other filter applied to it. Is that the result of In Focus? (I have that software, but haven't explored it yet.)

I am going to be the odd woman out and say that I find the vignette distracting--it was the second thing I noticed, after the leaf, which I don't think was your intention. Also, I would crop all around to make the leaf more prominent, but this is a purely personal preference; the crop works fine as is.

Thanks for sharing!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jules,
Late to the party.......but I like this as presented.....even the vignette (sorry Anita!). I just like the overall mood and textures. Very nicely done!