Any and all feedback is welcome! I’d like to know your thoughts on the colors and direction I’m taking this photo in so far. Thoughts on overall composition is appreciated as well. I attempted some cloning…very poorly. There was a couple of signs and a road partially showing in the bottom left corner. Do you all think I should attempt to clone more of the lighter color foliage in to help balance it out or just crop the bottom? I wouldn’t normally do much cloning but I really liked this group of trees!
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
Beautiful stand of trees and color with a rich darker background. I am seeing the foreground sage (if the blue is sage) as kind of an in-betweener. I would like either more of it or not have it there. If you choose to clone, the lasso tool and content aware fill might be very effective. Still, quite nicely done.
I can certainly see why you were attracted to this grouping of trees - I would too! I don’t know what is beyond the frame, but composition wise, not sure what you could do differently. You’ve isolated the aspen quite well and I like the supporting cast above and below the main trees.
The feedback I have is mostly around white balance. To me, this is a bit blue, with a strong leaning of blue/cyan especially in the pines.
I took the liberty, hope you don’t mind, to warm this up. Perhaps a bit too much, but mostly wanting to neutralize the blue/cyan cast. As always, color and saturation are subjective and we all have different leanings/preferences.
Also, regarding the sage at the bottom. Agree with Harley you’ve got a “tweener” there. I think though that there is enough sage at the bottom that I would leave as is. Looks too drastic to clone that all out. You did a pretty good job on the lower right, although some repeats can be seen.
I also dodged that lower right area a bit and burned/cropped to top pines. Here’s my interpretation. YMMV.
Very nice image. The light on the top right aspen is wonderful. I like the “tweener” line of sage. It makes an interesting layer, balances the scene, and is a nice color contrast.
I really like the composition, and the layers of color and texture are really pleasing. The sage at the bottom is fine, and as has been mentioned, cloning would be a chore.
Color balance-wise, I am leaning toward something between the original and Lon’s rework. A little blue would add to the atmosphere.
@Stefanie_Goo: For some reason, this scene looks really familiar. If you don’t mind me asking, where is this?
Lon: I’m being picky, but those are Cottonwood, rather than aspen.
-P
@Harley_Goldman Thanks! I was driving by this scene just as the sun was setting and had to pull over to get this shot! I’m not sure what to do with the sage just yet but thank you for your suggestion! I will try that!
@Lon_Overacker I agree - I pushed the blue too far but I do prefer a cooler white balance for this scene. I like the way the blue/cyan looks against the yellows but I think I’ll tone it down a bit in my final edit! Thank you so much for your suggestions and thoughts. I do appreciate your in depth responses!
This looks real good to me. I rather like the bluish interpretation except for the light foliage at the bottom left. I think your thoughts were correct in cloning it out or doing content-aware fill.
Stefanie, I like your arrangement of the trees here, they are nicely balanced, and make for a very attractive subject. I also prefer Lon’s warmer reprocessing of color balance, he kept the shadows relatively cool, while drawing out the warmth in the trees. I sort of agree with Harley on the sage, I’d like to see more of it. I think a crop to remove it doesn’t work that well. To experiment with the sage in a slightly different direction, I downloaded Lon’s version. In Photoshop I added 3% canvas to the bottom, selected the blank canvas with the rectangular marquee, and then filled the selection with Content Aware Fill. It did a semi-decent job, not perfect, but perhaps illustrative of another technique, if you are willing to to do stuff like this to your images (and to be fair, not everyone is).
Stephanie, I like your mix of colors and shapes. As a fan of sage (it smells so wonderful after a shower), I like having it at the bottom and think that its blue color looks about right. Another way to improve the balance would be to dodge the lighter tones in the bushes, lower right
That is a badass group of trees alright, and great light. I’m wanting some more room on the bottom of the image…maybe another 1/2" or so. Everything else is tight. Nice work.
aF
re; wb comments above (i always comment before reading)…leave it as you wish. wb can be an artistic choice at times
