Beaver Dam Pond Pano

This is five vertical images stitched in PS, from the wonderful hour of shooting on Beaver Dam Pond in Acadia NP this past October. Just wondering if anyone thinks this is to wide as I have one with eight images. Thanks for taking a look and leaving a thought.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

All C&C welcome

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

All C&C welcome

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-200 @ 200 mm, f 16 @ 1/5 sec, ISO 100 MLU, cable release & tripod

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Ed, I do not think this is too wide and the colors are really well done IMO. This pond just keeps on giving. My only nit is the bright gold tree on the right and the dam in front of it seem to be a bit of a magnet.

Great stitching, Ed. The fog seems to blend together nicely. Colors are nice and autumnal. It’s not to wide in my opinion. I think you could go even wider to 6x17. Great job.
:vulcan_salute:

Ed, I like your idea here, the array of fall color along the shoreline lends itself to a panoramic treatment. The reds and oranges on the left create a nice balanced comp against the yellow tree and beaver house on the right. I think the 5 image stitch works well enough, but I could also perhaps see adding one more image to the right of the yellow tree. But this works for me as presented.

My only suggestion is that for my taste the image has a slight green cast, especially noticeable in the fog. I corrected for that in a rework, and I think it also creates a bit better color separation in the trees above as well. But of course this is a matter of personal taste.

Beautiful Ed. This wonderful. And here is an example where a 50/50 split I think works perfectly; and it’s the fog, I think, that allows this to happen by obscuring the reflection a bit. Of course the rising mist is adding mood and atmosphere.

I like the presence of the yellow tree and beaver hut on the right as together they anchor the scene.

I didn’t pick up on it until @Ed_McGuirk mentioned, but agree with the slight WB cast. He is the master at picking up color issues! His slight adjustment does the trick.

The pano works perfectly and so no, not too wide. Beautifully captured and presented.

Lon

Because subtle color casts can be hard to spot, on almost every one of my own images, I run a TK actions “Neutralize Color Cast” layer. I don’t often use the results it creates, but it often reveals in what direction the color balance may be off. I then go in with a PS Color Balance adjustment layer and deal with it that way instead, doing it manually.

@Ed_Lowe green color cast may well be somewhat natural given how many green trees were still around when he took this shot, but to my eye it does not help the mist in the water. An addition of magenta globally also created a collateral benefit in the trees, in addition to neutralizing the mist.

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Ed, in retrospect I can see @Lon_Overacker point regarding the dam and yellow tree providing an anchor. I think I would prefer they have some more space to the right or an additional frame depending upon what you might have.

I like the pano new point here Ed. I think this image would look great printed big and would really energise a room.

I like the colour balance that @Ed_McGuirk has achieved the stun colours really pop for me with less green/cyan in the image.

Not too wide at all for me. I like Ed’s repost and the image works quite well for me. No other suggestions.

Thanks for your thoughts @Alan_Kreyger, @Michael_Lowe, @Ed_McGuirk, @Lon_Overacker and @Harley_Goldman; always appreciated.
@Alan_Kreyger: I have an additional image that I can add to the right so I will see what I can come up with.
@Ed_McGuirk: Thanks for taking the time to do a rework on the color balance as it looks much better. I did not even notice the green cast until I saw your rework. I am going to have to do a better job with that so I will have to check that action out .

I force myself to look at “neutral” colors like fog, mist, snow, clouds etc, (thing that should be gray or white). If they are not a relatively clean white, or perhaps slightly blue/cool, then I check them with the TK Neutralize Color Cast 1 action. That tool adjusts the image, and from what it does I can tell what colors are being adjusted. I usually do not like the result it produces initially, but sometimes dialing down the opacity of it’s layer produces a good result. Other times I just use the PS Color Balance tool to add the opposite color of the cast, doing it by eyeball.

The nice thing about either approach is that because it is layer based, you can mask and paint in the effect to only part of the image if that’s what produces a better result.