Here is a shot I took some days ago. It was not a motive I had planned it just appeared and looked very nice at that moment. Even the out of camera jpeg I do like and this image feels very promising to me, but as soon as I start processing it I feel it looses something, and I have been struggling to make it great (for me at least).
I think that there are two tricky parts in this image. The lower foreground has too many small twigs and a little fog giving an appearance of noise and top left part of the sky is a bit blown. If one starts processing, these two borderline parts start to distract from the whole picture. I used Highlight recovery (color propagation) and graduated filter to take care of the sky and lowering contrast and noise reduction in wavelet as well as detail tabs to take care of the foreground. Also I based my White balance on the snow lying on the rooftops. Here is the result:
Don’t think are the tones @McCap ; this is totally a POC, but I think the vista would benefit from a bit of blocking, so I brought more attention to the trees - which actually have an amazing palette - that are saying goodnight to the city while planning THE REVENGE!!! {bloody head}. The river seems also a natural line of force, too much sky is distracting says the frog, I say kiss the frog, burn the bridges, love the trees =)
@McCap What did you find attractive about the scene? What was the feeling you got when you captured it? Maybe it had to do with more than just the light… I will give it a try soon but as my screen is terrible the result could potentially be .
A fast review of POC (not done in FOSS, chorry). Notes/critique/poking stickin eye to self:
for a proper shared happiness editing of someone else’s “image” questions are needed, the sort of what @afre asked. I did this image before reading @McCap’s misty comment
when is ok to go against naturalistic perception? darker top mountains, really?
maybe a way could be to limit time spent in a (digital) tool, developer, etc.
a blindfold is said to augment the other senses…
when are tweaked luma masks too close to dodge and burning? I don’t really care
teq takeaway, inverted microcontrast blend in softlight useful misty poo.
Thanks for all the interesting entries, I got some ideas from them and finally did a version myself, which I am quite happy with.
Basics done in RT including the cropping, then exported to Gimp where I added the pinkish reflexion to the river, turned the lights on along the river and added local contrast to the foreground trees.
misty lovely, contrasty yet soft on top, river mirroring sky, and the later a pastel dream… love the colour’s delicacy, super!
Just top left corner is distracting IMO. Salu2 McCap =)
You are right, it is kind of blown. I only noticed after exporting to Gimp, and you know how it is…laziness is just stronger…so I didn’t go back.
Also the lower left corner is a little weak where I dodged the image a little because it lacked left framing (you know on the right the tree does a wonderful job, but the left was just to open…)
I totally know what you’re saying… and I downloaded your version to suggest that an “easy/lazy” way out would be to crop just below the blown part, then I noticed that there’s a smudge below the blow (now in an imax near you), then I thought okay, we could cut above the knew, there are plenty of 2nd hand wooden legs and then and there I noticed another smudge on the right, then I start laughing and now I share it with you =)
Sorry? Ja ja aj ajaa ja