Photo needs a name

[jacsul]

Taken today @ 10:32 am. Not quite a waterfall.
ISO=200
f/18
1/60 sec
40 mm

[Radu Dinu Cordeanu]

Hi,
Perhaps "Damp Stairs"!
Radu Dinu

[Donald]

Jack
Wasn't sure if you were seeking C & C on this. If not, apologies. If so, ..........

The river/creek/stream/burn (delete depending on country of origin!) certainly provides a strong line taking us back into the landscape. Your chosen shooting position also gives that line a nice curve - we start going up towards the top right, then curve around to head up and left, before curving again to go off through the trees. Nice.

I wondered what taking the water coming over the waterfall 'up' a bit would do. It looks a bit 'drab'. Do you think that pulling up the levels at the top end, putting on a mask and then painting back the 'waterfall' (or whatever way you do that sort of thing with Adobe products), might give it a bit more 'pop'? Do you think that, at the moment, the 'waterfall' maybe gets a bit lost because of the bright snow round about?

Did you put the vignette into the corners? I see you shot at 40mm, so I'm assuming it's not caused by hood or filter holder. Not my thing, I'm afraid.

And finally, I wondered of a little Local Contrast Enhancement would give more definition to the large rocks and the trees on the right hand side of the water as we look at it?

Nicely constructed image.

[CNelson]

Nice scene. How about "Snowy Brook?" The corner vignette bothers me a little and I think I'm seeing a green tint into the snow.

Chuck

[jacsul]

Here's the original. What I did was edit the original; lightness, contrast, noise,tone mapping and saturation then I duplicated the layer, desaturated, added high pass sharpen then blended with 50 percent opacity, I tried the technique from a popular photography article this month. I used the pin hole art filter to get the vignette effect of the 1st image.
Thanks for the positive feedback.

Donald, I've always admired your style of photography and P.P. techniques, I'd like to see how your rendition would turn out, if you like have a go at it.
Or anyone else for that matter...

[Donald]

Jack

Thank you for the compliment. I have done only what I suggested in my first post, as you can see from the screenshot below - but, remember, this is the GIMP, so things probably look a bit different than they would in an Adobe product.

Firstly, I added a new layer and pulled up the curve and then put on the mask. And then painted back over the white water at 50% opacity. Didn't want to make it look artificially bright.

Then, on another layer, did local contrast enhancement using the GIMP's Wavelet Sharpen Tool with the radius and amount settings as shown on the screenshot (the Adobe products equivalent have been suggested in various threads on here). Put a mask on this and then painted back - at 80% on the trees on the right hand bank as we look at it, 25% for the trees on the left hand bank, because it was those on the rigth hand bank that I wanted to make 'pop' some more, and 100% on the big rock surfaces.

And then put on the border.

I'm sure others will have different ideas. And that's the beauty of it all. Although we all share a general sense of what works and what doesn't and what makes a good image and what doesn't, at the end of the day it's all down to our personal preferences.



And, having done this, I don't think it really improves on your first posting. I lijke the tone you put on that. If you reproduced without the vignette (in my opinion), I think you've got a really nice image.

[carregwen]

... I'd like to see how your rendition would turn out, if you like have a go at it.
Or anyone else for that matter...

Thought I'd have a go as you asked. I put the shot into CS4 RAW editor and lifted the dark areas while turning down the highlights. Also reduced the colour balance to a bluer tint to make it look colder. It looks as if you had a cloudy day which has made the overall appearance a little grey looking. A sunny day would have been better.

Nice composition, and the exposure is pretty good for difficult conditions. A title? What about "Winter Flow"? It's always tricky naming landscapes!

[jacsul]

Nice Work Guys.