Banff Reflection

[Steve Adkins]

Mid-morning, slightly hazy day. Very calm. :S3:
D700, 24-70mm @ 60mm, FF, ISO 200, 1/80 @ f/7.1
This is a luminosity blend of B&W and color layers. Ran a detail action and dust removal in CS5 and added sharpening and saturation in LR.
Will post B&W version for comparison - comments - ideas for changes or improvement.
All C&C welcome.:S3:

[Steve Adkins]

Here is the B&W from Nik Silver Efex Pro...

[Dave Mills]

Hi Steve, in this case I feel the color version is stronger due to the increased contrast between the mountains,water and shoreline. At times filtered light can create interesting effects and this is no exception. The light is still warm which emits a golden color to the trees while the mountains and water are almost neutral. I like the fact that I can still see an element of detail in the mountains while the blank sky has been reduced to an absolute minimum.
I might eliminate the 2 white areas in the water. One is on the bottom and the other on the far right....
Well handled!!

[Gerald_Gilligan]

Hello Steve,

Interesting Blend.

My vote is for the color version...as it helps bring out the side lit tree's...

[Robert Amoruso]

Steve,

I like the B&W version better. The atmospheric affects created great layering in the mountains adding depth to the image. I particularly like how the tree reflection with the mountains has a 3D look to them. I feel this look is much better in the B&W. In the color, I just don't like the blue cast in the sky and reflection. And the tree color is kind of ho-hum to me.

But go to the black and white, remove the color and just concentrate on the tonal relationships and this all falls into place IMO.

I reposted a version where I used Local Contrast Enhancement to make it pop - Background Copy, USM at 20/50/0. This caused posterization in the sky on this JPG so be careful in the original and perhaps mask the sky out. However, the affect on the trees and the mountains - both real and reflection - really makes it pop.

I then did a shadow correction to reveal detail in the tree shadows.

I hope you don't mind but i cloned out the white spots (clouds) in the water reflection to show how much affect this actually has on the image.

An exceptionally well-seen image. Well done.

[Steve Adkins]

Thanks Dave, Gerald and Robert. Appreciate your time and visions. This helps me a lot.
Robert, I like the redo and will try to replicate it. Thank you for the tech tips, as working in B&W has its own set of subtleties. :S3:

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Steve, I like both versions of this image. I agree with the above comments. I think I would take the clonig of the white areas in the water one step further and clone the corresponding clouds from the sky too. Very nice work!

[Robert Amoruso]

Hi Steve, I like both versions of this image. I agree with the above comments. I think I would take the clonig of the white areas in the water one step further and clone the corresponding clouds from the sky too. Very nice work!

Good point Andrew. Thanks.

[Hilary Hann]

Steve, I'm very late to this party but immediately I saw your b&w post I thought that was the one for me. Robert's repost just seems to extract every last nuance from the image and is fabulous so I hope you are able to replicate it with your original file. Well done for trying different things with the OP as all that work is great for training the mind and the techniques. I can see why some preferred the colour as it would have been fine for me, until I saw the b&w.

[Steve Adkins]

Thanks so much Andrew and Hilary!

Steve, I'm very late to this party but immediately I saw your b&w post I thought that was the one for me. Robert's repost just seems to extract every last nuance from the image and is fabulous so I hope you are able to replicate it with your original file. Well done for trying different things with the OP as all that work is great for training the mind and the techniques. I can see why some preferred the colour as it would have been fine for me, until I saw the b&w.
Yes, Hilary, this was a great learning opportunity and I was able to replicate the changes suggested by Robert and Andrew. The B&W "turned into" my fav also.:S3: