Flooded plane

[AntonioCorreia]

I climbed onto a large granite boulder and from there, I saw the lake formed by the monsoon rains.
The water was still, reflecting the sky as it began to turn shades of pink and orange with the setting sun.
Scattered across the water, a few partially submerged trees stood like small green islands, holding their ground on the flooded plain.

[billtils]

Full markss for athleticism Antonio. The image is a bit flat though.

[DanK]

Antonio,

Also a nice composition. However, I agree with Bill. You have a pretty good tonal variation overall because of the water and sky, but almost half of the image is the rock, and that is flat and low-contrast.

I'm going to offer a general comment, and I hope you will find it helpful. You have a very good eye, and your photographs span an unusually wide range of genres. However, if you look at the comments you have received over the last year, there is a very consistent theme in comments about your editing: you don't have enough control over tonality (variations in brightness) to do justice to your otherwise very strong images. You have said a number of times that you don't have a good understanding of the curves tool, which is certainly part of it. I think it goes beyond that; you also could make much more effective use of local tonality adjustments, that is, burning and dodging. (Think back to Manfred's comments about your images at the mosque.) Given how interesting your images are, it would really be worth your time to study this and improve those skills.

In this case, I would have started by using a mask and brush or a selection to work on the tonality of the rocks that make up the bottom 40% of the image.

The basic uses of the curves tool are to add midtone contrast with an S-shaped curve and to brighten or darken the image as a whole by pulling the midtones up or down. However, it is a very powerful tool that can do much more. Pximperfect https://www.piximperfect.com/ has had one or more lessons about how to use the curves tool more fully. His presentations are very good, although he does speak rather quickly.

There are many different ways to dodge and burn. In Lightroom, I simply brush over an area with a low flow rate, say 10-12, and then pull exposure up or down with the slider. In Photoshop, I use a method I learned from Manfred on this site. To burn, for example, I watch the area that needs the most darkening and pull the curve down until that part is a bit too dark. I invert the mask to black and paint with a white brush (again, with flow set to <12) to darken specific areas. I like this method because it allows you to come back and modify either the selection or the darkening separately. However, there are lots of methods, so just pick the one you are most comfortable with.

I hope you see this as intended--as an effort to help, not to criticize.

Dan

[Geoff F]

Possibly cropping out some of the foreground and going to a panoramic size ratio would have more impact?

[AntonioCorreia]

At this moment I can't write about what has been said and what I have done in the version bellow.
Perhaps only on Saturday I will be able to write...


Tone curve on the image


Tone curve on the foreground (the rock) in LR via mask


Thanks A LOT !
Cheers !