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Tom Rambaut
01-24-2012, 12:50 AM
Took the chance to get into landscape mode.

Taken early morning - 7d, 17-40@ 20, 1/200 @ 10, ISO 320, EV +2

Thanks Tom

Jerry van Dijk
01-25-2012, 03:34 PM
Very nice and desolate! This would also be good with some more clouds to balance the FG compositional elements.

Morkel Erasmus
01-25-2012, 04:27 PM
One of those times you wish for a better sky! I do like the scene, the light reflected onto the trees from the water, and the "desolate" look as Jerry mentioned. :S3:

Jay Gould
01-25-2012, 04:33 PM
While it has depth, it appears flat as the contrast is lacking. Just to the right of the reflections there is a small piece of something on the edge of the frame, I would remove it. I also think it needs a tiny tiny CW; if you put a line across the tide lines the right side is a "nit" higher.

Tom Rambaut
01-25-2012, 05:27 PM
Thanks Jay - I did do some CW rotation, may needs some more.

Matt Fragale
01-26-2012, 08:30 AM
What an interesting location. I don't mind the clear blue sky in this. I think if I were going to try to improve this photo, I would crop it from the bottom between the two logs, nearer to the lower one so you retain some reflection, but remove the distracting bits of stuff in the water, maybe pump up the blue in the sky a little bit. Also, there's a couple dust specs in the sky. Or maybe they're very far off birds or tiny bits of black cloud, but they look like dust to me, so I'd clone them out. Jay is spot on about the trees all seeming a little flat. It doesn't ruin it, but if you could pump up the contrast a bit, maybe just a little black enhancement in LR would do it.

Arthur Morris
01-26-2012, 05:30 PM
Sharp with a good exposure and nice light but for me the compositional elements are lacking and the absence of a dramatic sky compounds the problem....

Andrew McLachlan
01-26-2012, 06:20 PM
Hi Tom, this location is certainly worth exploring further when the conditions are a little more favorable. You are on the right track with this one. I would prefer to see a comp where the tree branches do not merge with one another. Look forward to more of your landscapes.

Tom Rambaut
01-27-2012, 02:48 AM
Interesting comments. Thanks.

Robert Amoruso
01-30-2012, 03:04 PM
Tom,

I tried a couple of things. I first cropped bottom of the image out - I find that area more distracting the adding to the composition.

I then did the following to lower the "hotness" of the trees, then reduce overall saturation. Plenty of contrast so I would not increase that.

I left opacity of the Multiply layer (see below) at 100% as that made the sky rather a dramatic darker blue.



Go to http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20434 to see my Image Contrast and Tonal Range Tweaks, Part 1.

Go to http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?p=161168 to see my Image Contrast and Tonal Range Tweaks, Part 2.


Look at blending modes in the first link and highlight selection in link 2 using method 2 (CTRL Key and double click on the RGB channels pallet will make same selection in current versions of PS).

Highlight selection:

1) Channels palette.
2) Ctrl key and click the RGB channel. Photoshop will now create a feathered selection around highlight pixels in the image. Photoshop has selected pixels based on how bright they are. Pure white pixels are selected 100%. Pure black pixels are not selected and pixels falling in-between those two extremes are selected based on a percentage of how close they are to white.

Blending Mode Adjustment:

1) Go back to layer palette - you will see selection.
2) Create BG copy.
3) Create mask on the BG copy from the selection.
4) Selection is grayscale shaded.
5) Change blending mode to Multiply.
6) Adjust opacity

Tom Rambaut
01-30-2012, 04:23 PM
Thanks for taking the time Robert - photoshop is my biggest area of challenge in my photography. I like what you have done and the pano crop works well.

Jay Gould
01-31-2012, 04:39 AM
Robert the RP is great and your tutorials as always are wonderful. Have you done a tutorial on the use of channels? I use layers a lot and rarely venture into channels. Cheers, Jay