A couple of New England fall scenes

[DanK]

Both in Minuteman Park, which follows the path of the British army from Lexington to Concord MA and back, the day of the first battled of the Revolutionary War.

C&C welcome.

[Wavelength]

Autumn is the most beautiful time in Nature; it is yellow-orange-red every where... Excellent pair of images.

[lovelife65]

Really like number 1 Dan.
I don’t know why number 2 just doesn’t grab me.
Beautiful fall colors are my favorite.

[Geoff F]

I agree with Sharon, the second image isn't quite working for me. Possibly too complicated with all that bright colour; so perhaps a bit of a crop from the sides to concentrate on a main subject. Several crop options to consider.

[ST1]

Great autumnal colours in both Dan. The first one with the building is the stronger of the two, I would like to see more of the building it's construction intrigues me especially the opening at the right. It makes me want to explore that space which may have been your intention when you chose the composition.
The second one whilst it has lovely colours, my eyes wander around it but don't lock on to a focal point.


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[DanK]

Thanks all. My intent with the second, which clearly didn't work so well, is to capture the layers created by the three big trees of different colors.

The second was taken on an overcast day. (The faint blue where the sky shows through is fake--I selected those areas, darkened them, and gave them a slightly blue tone.) I've discovered that images taken on days like that expose a real weakness in my postprocessing. Part of this was a self-teaching exercise.

[Manfred M]

I agree with the others, the cabin image is the strongest one. The landscape is less effective.

I saw a video from Edward Burtynsky a few weeks ago in which he mentioned that tries to do all his landscape work on an overcast day. I don't think the issue is your PP work, I suspect it is more related other factors.

[DanK]

I don't think the issue is your PP work, I suspect it is more related other factors.

Sorry, the way I wrote that was misleading. I wasn't suggesting that PP was what's lacking in that issue. I segued into a larger issue. I have a lot of images taken on that day, and I have many taken on similar days, and I don't have a good approach yet to processing them. One needs to add pop, and doing that without messing up saturation and creating other unwanted effects is hard, at least for me. (I sometimes use luminosity blending for contrast enhancements, and that helps, although I'm finding that duplicating a curve, applying a normal blend to one and a luminosity blend to the other, and then mixing them with opacities close to 50%, sometimes works better.)

[Wavelength]

I feel that most among you live amidst the colours of fall and so feel the second image a "common place" thing; but for me, who don't experience Fall, the second image is a Celebration of colours in Nature and so a feast to eyes...and now, as Dan has claimed there is a beautiful combination of brown, yellow and orange.

[Manfred M]

Sorry, the way I wrote that was misleading. I wasn't suggesting that PP was what's lacking in that issue. I segued into a larger issue. I have a lot of images taken on that day, and I have many taken on similar days, and I don't have a good approach yet to processing them. One needs to add pop, and doing that without messing up saturation and creating other unwanted effects is hard, at least for me. (I sometimes use luminosity blending for contrast enhancements, and that helps, although I'm finding that duplicating a curve, applying a normal blend to one and a luminosity blend to the other, and then mixing them with opacities close to 50%, sometimes works better.)

I pulled this up on my screen and left it there for a couple of hours to analyze what does and does not work on this image for me:

1. I found that the top and especially the bottom of the scene were a bit bright and took away from the leaves. I added a gradient at the top to darken things up a bit and burned down the area from the small wall right down to the bottom.

I also removed some of the yellows in the grasses (desaturated the yellow channel) in the foreground grass to downplay them.

2. Added a slight vignette to darken the corners even more.

3. Added a touch more mid-tone contrast and pulled down the mid-point just a hair.

4. Burned down the highlights on the tree trunks.






That helps pull the viewer's eyes right into that yellow tree.

[Manfred M]

I feel that most among you live amidst the colours of fall and so feel the second image a "common place" thing; but for me, who don't experience Fall, the second image is a Celebration of colours in Nature and so a feast to eyes...and now, as Dan has claimed there is a beautiful combination of brown, yellow and orange.

You are right Nandakumar; the fall colours can be absolutely stunning, especially in the eastern parts of North America where the trees (primarily some types of maple and sumac) turn red and orange. Unfortunately, the colours do vary from year to year and the timing of the peak leaves can vary vary by a couple of weeks.

Once the leaves turn and start falling all it takes is one storm passing through and the wind and rain can literally strip the trees bare in a few hours. The COVID-19 situation complicated matters quite a bit as we did not head out to some of the better leaf viewing areas.

My project this fall is to do some photography in the time that the leaves are all down and before the snow covers the ground. I had hoped to do that last year, but in the city it was literally just a few days and I did not get any shooting in. Sometimes we get lucky and we don't get the snow that stays around until well into December, sometimes it sticks around from the beginning of November and in a really bad year the snow start accumulating even before all the leaves are down. That happened last year. While we don't get the monsoon rains, it can be cold, humid and miserable during this time of the year.

[Acorn]

Like most I prefer the hut picture, but both pictures appear very flat and with no discernible depth. Having said that I don't know what to suggest to correct the flatness.

[DanK]

Manfred,

thanks for taking the time to edit this. I think a couple of your edits are a step in the right direction, e.g., darkening the top. However, several of your edits go in a direction I wouldn't want. the subject isn't the yellow tree. It's the vertical and horizontal bands of color. Your edits focus attention on the yellow tree but at the cost of largely obscuring those contrasts.

Dan

Dan

[pschlute]

Loving the colours. Wish it wasn't raining here !

[klompen914]

This really opened my eyes to how to think about my images and utilize the tools selectively to subtly enhance without making it unrealistic. Thank you for sharing it!

[Labsta]

Nice image.

[katto]

Nice