Lost Lake and Mt Hood

[Tom Walter]

Does this image have too much lake? I took this from the shoreline with the log and rocks about 5 feet from the camera.
Nikon D200
Nikon18-200 3.5-5.6 G VR at 24mm
1/40 sec at f16 at hyperfocal distance
ISO 400
Tripod

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Tom,
Don't remember if you were OK with cloning/digital removal......if yes....then removing the LL corner rock group will definitely strengthen the image. Appears a bit bright....and sunny 16 rule at 400 iso would be a speed of 1/400th of a sec. Even with a polariser......probably too bright. I would try a levels or curves layer on the sky.....to bring it down tonally some. Not sure you can get all the snow back....but it will help.

[Rene Quenneville]

I agree with Roman's suggestion. Here is a pano crop that looks stronger to me.

As for the highlights, There was severe burn in the whites. I tried to reduce it a bit and then added some saturation and contrast. Hope you like it.

[Tom Walter]

Here's my rework of the image. I removed the rocks and log at the lowest part of the image but left the upper two rocks in because I thought they provided a leading line to the reflection and the mountain. I cropped a little off the bottom and left but still maintained a 1.5:1 aspect ratio. I also tried to darken the sky by using curves, selective color and hue saturation. The polarizer effect really gave me trouble with this. I'm not sure that I like this sky. Any suggestion on how to correct the sky would be welcome.

Tom

[Bruce Murden]

I like your rework, cropping out the LL rock group. To tighten the comp, I think it would have been good to have a lower perspective (camera closer to the ground), but pull the pair of rocks a little closer to the reflected treeline, so they would point even stronger to the mountain.

I also like Rene's pano crop for taking this image in another direction.