Critique please

[Evertking]

Anything... If you say it sucks, fine... Just tell me ways to improve it. I just want to learn.
Pic 1



Pic 2



Pic 3



Thanks for taking the time to help.

[DanK]

i don't see the image

[Donald]

I see them.

Could you post the images with some space between them please.

[Wavelength]

Excellent images; the big root in #1 looks like a big lizard moving away... the slow shutter really worked here; the sky colour in the left top corner is awesome. Other two images are really fine too!!!

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Mike,

Just tell me ways to improve it. I just want to learn.

I can't help feeling that #1 has been rotated?
All those trees leaning by roughly the same amount.
Not saying it's wrong, just not I'd have done.

In #2, what initially struck me was the false looking brighter line at the join of sky and trees, but there's another issue I'll deal with regarding #3, since it's far more prominent there. I also not sure the tonality and/or color temp. of various areas looks natural; the grassy area looks too pale, while the foreground area to left looks a peculiar color, I'm not even sure it is rocks or water, I assume rock since the same color extends up the face to the left of the tree.

#3 is marred by huge lateral chromatic aberration (CA) errors*, all lenses do this, some worse than others, but LR and PS (ACR) both have excellent tools fro eradication of the problem - now these tools sometimes get deselected (turned off), so you just need to be able to recognise (instantly) when that's happened, so you can sort it out.

* I'm not sure if you know about lateral "CA"; the first thing to know is to look for it at the edges and corners, it is obvious here because in the fine detail of trees against sky, we see magenta colours one side of the trunk and green the other and these colors are reversed if you compare camera left to camera right.

The problem is that when lateral CA becomes this bad, it imparts a false color effect to all high contrast image detail.

I attach a version I have tried to correct in ACR, it wasn't easy - but it is probably worse trying to do it on a 'finished' jpg than working the RAW file would be.



Flick between this and your last in LyteBox repeatedly and study where the changes are.
These will be images 3 and 4 of 6 (with luck).


Here's the Manual CA panel, without and with the adjustments I used (color ranges and amounts).

Without (Green Amount and Purple Amount are both zero, ignore those default Hue sliders)


With (Green Amount and Purple Amount are both 10, Hue ranges moved & expanded)


Ask if I have left you wondering about something.

Hope that helps,
Dave

[Manfred M]

Three decent images Mike. Here are a few thoughts on each one.

Pic 1 - The white areas of the impact of the long exposure on the water definitely catches the viewer's eye and pulls it into that part of the image. There are some nice details to explore as the eye wanders around a bit, especially when looking at the roots of the tree on the bottom left. The back-lit areas have been exposed well and give the viewer an area to explore in detail.

Two things bother me about this image; the previously mentioned trees that seem to tilt to the left suggest that your camera was not level when you took this shot. The other area that is a bit distracting is the bright orange colour in the top left corner of the image. It is quite distracting and pulls the viewer's eye right out of the image; not something that is really that desirable.

Pic 2 - In my view this is the strongest shot of the group. The eye is drawn in to the bright spot in the river and from there it moves around and explores the rest of the image. The sky is nicely textured and interesting, without overpowering the image.

What catches my eye is the light blue band just above the tree line that starts roughly in the middle of the image and moves and strengthens when the viewer looks to the right. It has some of the appearance of a sharpening artifact, but seems a bit more localized. I'm not sure what is going on there, but it is a bit strange.


Pic 3 - This is the weakest of the group. It has no centre of interest to draw the viewer's eye in; as a whole there isn't a lot to look at here and the viewer will just move on.

The purple and green, as Dave has mentioned, do not work at all and his version definitely corrects that issue; but that does nothing for the compositional issues.

[Shadowman]

Nice efforts, each has dreamy fairytale like imagery however the slow shutter speed has created a foamy texture to the water that is a bit overdone. The water beneath the foam has too much coloration giving a noisy look to that area. Some visible banding appears in the third image however may not be as visible in a print but the noise in the sky will show through. I do like the second image, nice balance of light and midtones.

[joebranko]

Hi Mike,
I like #1 with the Anaconda-like root. The soft water in the brook is very nice.

[DanK]

I agree that #2 is the best in terms of composition, #3 the weakest.

At the moment, i am not at a color-calibrated monitor, so I hesitate to say this, but the colors in #2 and #3 look unnatural to me. However, I can't figure out what the cause might be. At first glance, #2 seemed almost HDR-like, but it's more complex than that. The rights at the lower left seem oversaturated, while the grass at right center seems if anything undersaturated. How did you process this?

[Manfred M]

I agree that #2 is the best in terms of composition, #3 the weakest.

At the moment, i am not at a color-calibrated monitor, so I hesitate to say this, but the colors in #2 and #3 look unnatural to me. However, I can't figure out what the cause might be. At first glance, #2 seemed almost HDR-like, but it's more complex than that. The rights at the lower left seem oversaturated, while the grass at right center seems if anything undersaturated. How did you process this?

Dan - I am looking forward to reading the answer to these questions as well.

What is obvious is that the second two images are back-lit, so the areas we are seeing would be in shadow, so those parts of the image have been lightened quite considerably to bring out the details.

[Cantab]

I agree that #2 is the best in terms of composition, #3 the weakest.

At the moment, i am not at a color-calibrated monitor, so I hesitate to say this, but the colors in #2 and #3 look unnatural to me. However, I can't figure out what the cause might be. At first glance, #2 seemed almost HDR-like, but it's more complex than that. The rights at the lower left seem oversaturated, while the grass at right center seems if anything undersaturated. How did you process this?

Mike, my initial reaction when I saw these images was that they had been HDR'd. I personally am not a fan of some HDR work I've seen but recognize that many disagree with me.

I agree with Dan that compositionally #2 works best. It's an interesting image.

[Dave Humphries]

I agree with Dan that compositionally #2 works best. It's an interesting image.

I also agree Bruce,

Although, if mine, I might crop the bottom off so that the river bank starts from the lower right corner instead of some way up the side.

Comment made to redress the lack of such in my first post.

[rpcrowe]

I noticed what I didn't notice I use a small Acer Chromebook for web surfing with my morning coffee... The screen on this unit is too small and the definition of the screen is not sharp enough to notice the problems mentioned above...

This is a learning experience since I now realize that the Acer Chromebook, despite its great travel size, might not be the best unit to use for downloading travel images.

My wife has a really nice Samsung Chromebook Pro which, although not terribly much larger has a far sharper screen and would therefore be a better choice to use for downloading travel images. Problem is, I can't pry that unit out of her hands.