don't mean to kick a dead horse, but...

[E.S. Crawford]

first attempt at a huge photo edit.

from this........

[E.S. Crawford]

...to this.

i know the quality of the edit is questoinable, for i have never attempted so much

altering. i will spend more time and care to get it just right (the sky is still very bland).

what I need to know is if i"m heading in the right direction.


scot

[waste]

spot onnnnnnnnnnnn



ur heading in the right direction. I would like to see that over exposed top part. The top part of the trees and sky being edited a bit..



but a great attempt..

vivek

personally i feel this is a great picture....

[vIZnquest]

I can't offer any help in PP on the hot look of the tree tops but if you can find a ND filter that is half grad, half uv it would possibly help in your not needing to PP.

I have one and it does work.

[LadyhawkVA]

I think you've gone a long way toward improving the picture. How about getting rid of the sky completely?

[Stevekin]

I don't see this as kicking a dead horse, this one is very much alive as it's a beautiful scene.

I followed your other thread with this, and while there was some good advice, I am pleased to see you keep the full reflection of the central tree and the foliage in the foreground, which provides a great frame for the lake.

LadyHawkVA's suggestion is a good one. For a quick fix, it doesn't look too bad without the sky. But I think it looks a lot better with it.

As for the suggestions to shoot from a different angle....yes, it would possibly make for a better composition, for some.But I think this is spot on as it is !!

Yes, your editing is moving in the right direction and to possibly help you, I offer my two penn'th.

The tree at the extreme right shows signs ofcloning with a repeating pattern. Try to make it more random bysampling different areas of the tree and certainly remember to switch of Aligned. I copied and pasted a selection from another tree to go over it.

Upped the contrast, because I like it that way , and the shadow slider in Levels needed to move across slightly.

I'm not the best when it comes to colour, but rather like the look of the light blue sky here. You can import a new sky or 'paint' one in, but for this I created a new layer and used the Clouds filter. Set the foreground colour to the blue of your choice, leaving the background colour white. Go to Filter/Render/Clouds. Now change the blend mode of the new layer to Darken, take the eraser and 'rub' out the darkened areas of the image that you don't want the new sky affecting. Using this method you do not have to be precise at the tops of the trees, and it will not leave any tell tale halos around them.

Finally, applied a very small amount of Unsharp Mask to the whole image, around 30 % at 1.3 pixels.

Hope this will be of assistance to you.

Great image .

[E.S. Crawford]

you guys can't imagine how much your advice has helped me. i am not a n'bie to

photography, but this was my first attempt at real Editing. with all the suggestions i've

recieved about PS, i am getting a grasp of the artform side of my passion. my

photography has hit a new level thanks to the help from all of you. i would like to say

one thing though. for all of you giving technical camera advice. i am shooting with a

Kodak easyshare i bought for 75 bucks (i gave my Canon to my best friend). it does not

even provide bracketing, let alone anything else. it is just a basic point and shoot for

consumers. i am making the best of it until i can get a real camera.

until then, thank you

for all your advice, everyone and i'll keep the shots coming!

P.S. i think steve has hit the mark. i will work on this one a bit more and post later.


scot