Approaching Tree-line, Summit County, Colorado

What technical feedback would you like if any?

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Is there enough tonal contrast in the image?
How do you feel about the trees on the far left, do they muddy up the composition too much?
Do the trees in the middle look centered to you?
Any other compositional suggestions are more than welcome :slight_smile:

Any pertinent technical details:

This is a blend of 3 bracketed exposures
Sony a7ii w/ Tamron 28-75mm

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
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Chris, this is really nice. I like the blue tones and the diffuse light on the snow. To answer your questions specifically:
Tonal contrast looks good to my eye, but you could maybe get away with lightening the brighter areas just a bit.
I don’t mind the trees on the left, but maybe wish there was a little separation between them and the center trees. They start to blend together visually as is.
The center trees do look centered to me, and I like their relative size and the amount of room all around them (except with the trees on the left as I said before).

There is a band up top where the color shifts to very pink. Not sure what caused that.

Thank you so much for the critique, Craig. I’ll see what I can do about bringing up the lighter areas a bit when I get home.

The trees on the left bother me as well, I think I really needed blowing snow or something over there to separate them a bit more.

Not sure I see what you mean about the pink band, could you elaborate? I think I’ve been looking at the picture too long :smiley:

For me, the trees on the left have enough haze in front of them to separate them pretty well, it’s just that they touch the large center trees. A step or two to the left would have added a little sky between the two masses of trees. This is really no big deal though.

The top 50 or so pixels across the entire image have a color shift to pink, particularly in the whites. It’s a hard line, so I’m guessing from something in processing. Hopefully the attached screenshot of the top left corner better illustrates what I’m seeing.

ScreenShot

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Oh wow I see it now, though it looks very subtle to me, thanks so much for catching that! I think I must have messed up my layer ordering somewhere along the line.

Including the small trees and distant mountain on the right implies to me that you want the viewer’s eye to travel from the large group in the middle to the right and into the distance. This is a nice line. But including the trees on the left is a distraction and breaks the flow you created.

This is excellent, Chris. Wonderful light and atmosphere. Other than that pink band up top, that was already noted, your processing looks good. I could see maybe experimenting with warming up the color balance of the trunks in the prominent trees at center but not much. The crop works pretty well as framed but the image is a little heavy on the left. I could see taking a bit off the right - maybe half of the area between those two larger distant trees and the right frame edge.

It is indeed a lovely scene. The softness of tone and the cool colour palette work beautifully. I think Rick Alway’s comment has merit. My eye does feel as though it is being pulled in two directions. But the main thing for me in this image is a mantra that I picked up from Sam Abell - " compose the picture and wait." For me, this image is like a perfect stage set. You have your background and middle ground all set up for something to happen. It might a spot of light, a bird, an animal or a person - impossible to say, but it feels to me that that is what is holding this image back.

Thank you for the insight Rick, I see what you mean about the trees on the left distracting from the flow. I never thought about it in those terms but it makes perfect sense; all the lines point to the mountain and trees on the right but the trees on the left pull your eyes away. Now I just need to recognize things like that in the field haha!

Thank you for the critique Dave. I’ll play around with warming up the trunks later that’s a good idea. I never really touched the trees in my local edits; most of my efforts were focused around cooling the shadows and warming the highlights in the snow. I agree it looks left heavy, do you think that is because the trees on the left are taller than the mountain on the right? I’ll play around with cropping it a bit more as well.

Chris,

Except for the aforementioned band up top, I think this is quite excellent as presented. I really like the sweeping texture and shadows of the foreground snow. For me, there’s enough mist/haze in the bg left trees that they separate just fine for me. The open space on the right helps bring some depth to the scene and the misty/foggy sky really ties this all together. Enjoying this one a lot.

I suspect as you mention that the banding is likely to do with some alignment with one of the frames for your exposure blend. pretty weird though.

Lon

Really nice as presented Chris, but in answer to your first question I would consider just a bit more selective contrast. Here’s a quick example of what I mean.