River scenes - C & C welcome

[topol]

On the river today.....
I'm not too happy with how the bushes have come out so dark.
I'd like to improve on this without resorting to PP.

Thames wildlife by taffopol, on Flickr

Thames side pub by taffopol, on Flickr

Twin Power by taffopol, on Flickr

Around the mark by taffopol, on Flickr

Rounding the mark by taffopol, on Flickr

[JohnRostron]

These image links do not work. No images are visible and the links to Flikr will not allow me access.

John

[topol]

I think I know what happened. Are they OK now?

[Geoff F]

Well I can see them anyway!

The duck is possibly cropped a fraction on the tight side but possibly you don't have an option for some reason.

The river scene is certainly lacking in 'zip' but I assume it was a dull day and that is a real life shot. Increasing the highlights a little would give a bit of a boost but there is a risk of over exposure in the sky. Shooting with a little positive exposure compensation but not enough to 'blow out' the sky may have worked.

Maybe try a little bit of Local contrast Enhancement but once again be careful of the sky highlights. Sometimes I do that on a layer then add a mask which can be edited to carefully control the effects. But can your software support layers and masks?

Another option would be an Adjustment Layer with the Blend Mode set to something like Soft Light.

Simply using an S shaped curve in the Curves adjustment might work. But whatever you try be careful. It will be so easy to over edit this sort of scene and end up worse off.

The others are OK except for the last one which is very soft. Is there an upload problem there?

[topol]

I don't think I was restricted for cropping the duck - just how I did it.
I did increase the highlights a little in the pub scene (with Picasa 3).
I don't understand the difference in the last one either - no upload issue as far as I recall. May have been camera movement?
I'm not into PP in a big way, but I have GIMP which does layers and things.

Here's the original image of the duck - I was restricted somewhat....
Duck - original image by taffopol, on Flickr

and the original of Rounding the mark
Rounding the mark - original image by taffopol, on Flickr