Advice required

There is something wrong with this image, and I cannot figure it out…


Victoria Falls in low water.

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.

Jaapv, it would be helpful if you could be more specific about what bothers you with this image. Is it not looking the same as it does on your monitor? If it does looks the same, are you having issues with exposure / contrast, or color / saturation ?

I more or less like the composition, and the concept of looking down the gorge. I like the sunlit waterfall on the right as a framing element. My composition nitpick would be that the river gets pretty narrow at it tightest point, a shot taken further to the right of where you were standing would have helped that (but I suspect that shooting position may not have been available to you).

My other comment would be that the blue/cyan colors look too saturated for my taste, especially in the sky. Also the blue saturation in the deep shadow areas of the gorge is high for my taste, but perhaps within the range of personal preference. In real life, shadow areas have low saturation colors and our eyes are used to seeing shadows that way. I might try reducing the blue saturation in the deepest shadow areas, don’t warm the shadows up, just reduce saturation.

if I knew what was wrong I could fix it. It just feels unsatisfactory. Postprocrssing and printing is never a problem.

@jaapv, perhaps opening up the shadows to get some more detail in the shaded areas might help. There is a lot of visual mass in the dark areas, but there also is a lot of detail in the interesting rocks. I agree with Ed on the bluish shadows - sometimes really blue shadows work, but these are a bit too bluish. I can show you what I mean, if you’d like (I don’t want to be pushy, though).

I have a few critiques to offer. Two are processing related although you stated no problems with post processing. Too much blue/ cyan in the river. There are some funky looking blue ares in the trees in UR. Other is compositional. It seems too heavily weighted on the right and the cliff face on the left blocking view of the river is problematic. JMHO
:vulcan_salute:

Jaapv,

IMHIO, something being wrong is totally subjective. Many images posted here and more often than not, viewers are split on whether or not they think something is wrong - and what someone thinks is wrong, is subjective. Maybe “wrong” is too strong. “something is bothering me and I don’t know why” is maybe easier to explore.

This goes for both composition as well as processing. I’ll join in and agree about the blue/cyan. The shadow areas in the trees UR are unnaturally blue and the river is too cyan. If you look at the water just above its most narrow point you can see how strong the cyan is. These are not major factors and easily “fixed.”

I too was going to comment about the narrow visibility of the water - but also acknowledge and bet that 99% chance a “few steps to the right” likely to end up in certain death… :roll_eyes: Of course we don’t know the constraints of your viewpoint choices there. The good thing is that the river is contiguous - and while it gets narrow, the opposing rock faces do not merge, which I think is an asset here.

I think because the river has such a narrow presence, that I think perhaps as much as a 25% crop off the bottom might be in order. That might bring attention back to the streaks of light and the both sets of falls.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned I’m a little puzzled by. In the upper section of the falls and spray, the water/spray going above the horizon looks like giant splashes of water, rather than mist. Not sure if that makes sense, but the brightest area of the water/mist above the diagonal rays of light, well, just look like more than spray.

I’m hard pressed to figure out what may be bothering you. I think fixing the blue/cyan saturation and a slight crop off the bottom and I think it’s a fine take away image from Victoria falls.

Lon

1 Like

Agree on the cyan in the river - Agree on the composition too, but I had no choice without sprouting wings :frowning: Well, they call it “The Flight of the Angels” to view from the air… :wink: I’ll correct the river and crop down to 4/3rd. More detail in the rocks will be a bit more complicated. I’ll take it into LAB. And yes, the spray might be a bit over-accentuated, that was a last-minute tweak. It may take some time. I will need three layer masks and some precision painting.

Other than color my eye went right to the mist floating above the falls. It looks like heavier water than should be there or it’s crunchy from oversharpening. Not sure if that’s what’s bothering you?

What is wrong (you asked) is that the image is suggesting that the water is defying gravity, running up hill in the opposite world. The image needs flying bobcats (or suitable replacement).
TY

Well spotted. That is in fact, the case. The river is flowing away from the observer, as it comes from another part of the falls. behind the rocks, on the left, is the common river going down. A T-junction.

I think it looks a little too HDR, the shadows could go a bit darker and the clouds feel a bit dingy since they are more grey and flat now instead of bright and white. The blue sky and river are a bit too saturated as well in my opinion. I think you could play with some more adjustments to have a central focus of the scene, a specific area you want the eyes to go when someone is looking at it.

I’m not sure how much post processing you did to the highlights, midtones, and shadows, but I often find if I over edit the tonality in a photo, especially photos with a lot of dynamic range, the photo ends up just not looking right, or to use your words, like something is wrong.

Well, I’ve revisited it and I guess it’ll just go into the bin. I’ll have to return to get a better shot at another time of the day…