More Industrial Heritage

[Chataignier]

Forge Savignac Ledrier on the river Auvezere in central France. The site was the last in the region to cease activity - in the 1960s. Built in 1520, it originally produced iron from local ore using a wood/charcoal fired furnace, the water mill provided power for the bellows that aspirated the fire. More recently the mill powered a small factory making domestic articles from bought-in steel.

Here is a view of the whole site at Forge Savignac Ledrier, including the owner's chateau, and a cropped version which I feel is perhaps more balanced, though at the price of cutting part of the reflection - full or cropped ?

[billtils]

I like the reflections in the un-cropped version - it looks like an idyllic country scene that belies its industrial origins.

[Geoff F]

Maybe a slightly wider crop plus a bit of cloning out; including those smaller branches in the top left corner.

[billtils]

Geoff, they didn't really bother me but I agree - better without them

[pnodrog]

Uncropped but with the highlights removed and contrast lowered for the untidy reeds? on bottom left. I would also soften them by reducing the clarity and sharpness. At the moment they are a bit distracting but I think you can make the area far less so.

[Manfred M]

+1 to what Paul has written.

I find that the cropped version feels cramped and your original version has better visual flow.

[DanK]

I agree, the uncropped is much more pleasing to me.

The stuff in the bottom left, however, is a problem. You could try to make it less salient, as Paul suggests. Or you could try to get rid of it. I spent a few minutes trying to get Photoshop's generative fill to remove it, in pieces. The rightmost piece worked fine, but then it kept inserting versions of what I was trying to remove. Adding "water" as a prompt produced three images with huge discarded plastic water bottles lying there. So then I tried using phrases like "water like the surface above" or "water like the surfaces above and to the right". That sort of worked, but for some reason, the training set induced it to add ripples that are entirely out of place. I'll paste the corner it produced. However, I think that with some work and patience, one could get rid of that section.

[Chataignier]

Interesting that you want to get rid of the bit of river bank bottom left. I deliberately left it in because I felt the composition had too much empty space in that area without it. There is actually another version of this view, taken from a different position, which has only water in the bottom left and i rejected it as unbalanced.

Perhaps clearing out the top left too would balance it up - I'll try it.

[Round Tuit]

I think that the river bank on the left is a positive element and should stay. I also agree with Paul that it could be cleaned up.