House, Stonington, Maine

I'm not sure about this image. It is bright, and the bg is bright and weird and I'm not sure it all works.
I liked the siding, the color, the clothes and objects inside, the reflections, the water.
Used basic adjustments in Adobe Elements 10. Also Topaz Adjust HDR, and CEP Darken center. Selective darkening and lightening.
All comments welcome.

I really like the house here, and the architectural lines are very nicely straight. Not so sure the BG works with it, as you said. I wonder how it would look with the BG desaturated somewhat. The halo is something of a issue for me, too. Would lightening the darker tones in the BG reduce it somewhat? And/or remove the objects in the water? Blur it more??

The lines of the house are so clean it shouldn't be difficult to mask out the house and work on the BG separately, or even replace it. Could be fun to play with, anyway.

Hi, Anita, I know you like bright colors and I like the composition and the lines. The first thing I noticed was the halo which Diane mentioned. Actually, the first thing I thought was that it would look nice as a black and white.:S3: I worked on it in Nik Silver Efex, changed it to b&w and then brushed back in a little bit of the color in the window. It's definitely different and I'm sure you'd prefer the color but I liked it also.

Anita,

Greetings. Maybe this is a bit odd, but fwiw... I thought adding a little yellow to the sky in the bg might unify the bg with the house a bit, then I kind of got carried away and painted in the yellow over the entire bg and extended it across the wood, and, well, punched the things through the window as well. Just one solid yellow fill layer with soft light blend, paint white on black mask.

Just a thought...

Cheers,

-Michael-

Hi Anita, I like the overall look of the image. I think there might be just a tad too much going on visually, so I agree with working with the bg a bit. I like Michael's color work on it, something to consider as well as the monochrome idea.

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Originally Posted by Cheryl Slechta

Hi, Anita, I know you like bright colors and I like the composition and the lines. The first thing I noticed was the halo which Diane mentioned. Actually, the first thing I thought was that it would look nice as a black and white.:S3: I worked on it in Nik Silver Efex, changed it to b&w and then brushed back in a little bit of the color in the window. It's definitely different and I'm sure you'd prefer the color but I liked it also.

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Thanks. Did you save the version you did? I'd like to see it. I'll work on eliminating the halo and some of the objects in the water.

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Originally Posted by Kerry Perkins

Hi Anita, I like the overall look of the image. I think there might be just a tad too much going on visually, so I agree with working with the bg a bit. I like Michael's color work on it, something to consider as well as the monochrome idea.

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Thanks. Good point about too much going on. I'm going to clean up the water.

Anita, I found it. Here it is.:S3: When I was scrolling up from the bottom I noticed that it looked nice with a crop from the top eliminating the tree line and sky. Just another thought.

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Originally Posted by Anita Bower

Thanks. Did you save the version you did? I'd like to see it. I'll work on eliminating the halo and some of the objects in the water.

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Thanks to everyone who commented and helped me with this image. I think I need to experiment with ways to simplify it. The feedback helped me identify what was bothering me about it.