Any and all.
I brightened the image a bit for the posting, and wondering if that was a good thing.
Any and all. Particularly regarding the composition.
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
I will preface my comment by saying that I often struggle with compositions in forest scenes such as this. I like the fall color in the scene and overall the trees create a vertical rhythm for the composition and are nicely spaced throughout the frame. Iām a bit unsure about the fallen tree in the foreground. It definitely tells the story of the location. However, it seems to interrupt the rhythm of the composition from the vertical trees. It also directs my attention out of the frame on either side. Because of these two aspects it carries a lot of visual weight in the scene which can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on the story that you want to tell. Iāll be interested to hear otherās thoughts as I have a lot to learn about composing these kind of images myself. 
I agree with Brian. I like the background fall forest, however, the fallen tree demands a lot of attention and stops me from entering the scene. Thatās was my immediate reaction before reading Brianās comment.
Chris,
As Brian and Bill have pointed out, I think we all know the difficulties in squeezing out comps in chaotic forests like this - Order from chaos. I like what youāve recognized here. There is an opening around the center that actually works as an anchor (like, an empty space can be an anchor?) I would agree and my first thought was that the fallen tree āblocksā the entry in to this scene. But the good news is, it also tells a story and can be seen as framing the scene.
Iāll come back to the comp, but I also wanted to mention the colors. At least on my monitor thereās some color/WB work that needs to be done. The brightness is ok, and is a personal choice. But I do see this as leaning blue and magenta. Judging primarily by the grays in both the vertical trunks and the fallen weathered one, the colors are a little off.
Roughly, I used a Selective Color layer to increase the yellow, drop the cyan and magenta to neutralize some of the colors. I also used a H/S layer to reduce blue/cyan/magenta basically warming things up. Also some Levels layers dropping some of the very brightest areas. Lastly, I burned down the fallen log and below. I often use the trunks of trees to judge color casts - and in this case there are some whiter (birch?) trees on the right that I tried to neutralize, as well as the grays of the vertical trunks and fallen log. I skewed a little to remove the gap in the ULC.
Also tried a more drastic crop removing most of the tree on the right. Not sure if this helps or not, but thought I would give it a shot.
In the crop, I thought reducing the amount of space below the fallen log would help reduce its blocking effect?
Chris, I think @Lon_Overacker has given you some outstanding advice in terms of tweaking both color and composition. I love Lonās second re-post where he has cropped in to make the log more of a framing element, rather than a barrier to entry into the image. And Lonās rework of color has added a tremendous amount of vibrancy to the image.
Regarding the log, I do think it can be an effective part of the story, and I like Lonās idea of using it as a framing element. It is also worth noting that Lon has not only made the log smaller, he has also made it less bright. In the original image, the brightness of the log grabbed my eye, and I think the brightness was part of why it seemed like a barrier to entry to me.
I would also suggest a crop from the top to eliminate/reduce the bare patches of white sky, they pull my eye away from the center of the image. I would suggest something like this, starting from Lonās 2nd rework
I donāt see chaos. The crops help a lotā¦the problem is that when you present any strong straight line in a image, especially when it parallels a border, it competes with all the borders, here, making itās own crop and gaining undue attention. I found the ocean/sky line a most difficult line to compose and gave up.
That said, feels like Iām there. ready to push the log off the stomp cuz it looks like a danger to all.
TY
Many thanks to all who made suggestions here ( I havenāt figured out the means of tagging used here). I have posted another image now at the top of my original post. I wonder if its still a little cyanish. I find these type of image very difficult (it may be impossible) to get an overall WB that works. But frankly, the first post is embarrassing.
Darkened the foreground with a gradient filter.
I took a lot of suggestion for the cropping as you can see. For me, the important element is the bit of opening in the woods (story: is it worth climbing the log to get there). And cropping the right too much left those branches just hanging. So this is what I get.
So many considerartions.
Thanks again,
Chris
@Bill_Pelzmann @stevenm @Brian_Schrayer @Ed_McGuirk @Lon_Overacker
Got it now.
Chris,
Excellent job on the repost. I think you nailed it. Good compromise with the right side crop as I see what you mean about leaving the branches hangingā¦
Not sure if cyan is an issue in the repost either. Another way I deal with color balance especially with blue, cyan and magenta is simply use a Hue/Sat layer and drop the saturation a bit in whichever color you think needs tweaking. Sometimes easier than working a color balance layer with Selective color, Channel mixer or Color balance layers.
Looking good. Thanks for taking the time to rework.
Lon
I like the rework Chris. This looks like it was a productive critique exercise to go through. I agree with you, the center of the image is the star of the show.
Iāve never come across using layers for working on white balance having started with Lightroom. For me PS was a great learning curve, but I can see now that proficiency in PS will be important. Im using CO now and it has some layer capabilityā¦weāll see.
Thanks again, NPN is a great learning platform.
Chris
Chris, I think you will find that many folks here will tell you that in a natural lighting situation like this one, itās almost impossible to get one WB setting in Lightroom that makes all parts of the image look good. Frequently, you will want to make local adjustments to WB instead of just global adjustments, some times targeting shadows and highlights separately for WB adjustments, sometimes just specific areas of an image.
You can do this in a crude, limited way within Lightroom, the adjustment brush does have Tone Y/B and Tint M/G sliders. Most folks here use photoshop adjustment layers such as Hue/Saturation and Color Balance to make more targeted color and WB adjustments. And some take that a step further by doing this in conjunction with luminosity masks such as the Tony Kuyper TK panel to make WB adjustments separately to shadow and highlight areas.
While Iām suggesting there are actually two learning curve hills to climb, (PS and TK), if you have a look at the Tony Kuyper website and some of the free Sean Bagshaw videos, you can get an idea of the true power of PS and TK to make local adjustments. Even having some limited, basic proficiency in PS and TK will open up whole new processing worlds for you beyond Lightroom.
Ed,
I started using the panel by Jimmy McIntyre called Raya 4 for blending in PS. Donāt know if it will do WB. Thanks for the pointer to TKā¦Iāll see if that might be easier to use.
And thanks for the support.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris, Iām not too familiar with Raya, but from my limited understanding of it, the TK Actions Panel is more robust for doing many things. I believe TK does a lot more in terms of Photoshop automation than Raya does. And @Tony_Kuyper, who is the author of the TK panel, is an active participant here at NPN, so you may want to consider supporting him with your business.
Some users of luminosity mask panels use LM selections to target saturation, color, and white balance separately in shadows vs. highlights. The Sean Bagshaw videos sold in conjunction with the TK panel give a number of examples of doing these types of things. Of course there is also a lot you can do directly in photoshop with Selective Color, Color Balance, etc. but combining these adjustment layers with LM selections gives you even more control over adjustments. Tonyās Saturation Masks are also a very powerful tool that I use on many images, it allows you to separately select the most or least saturated colors in an image, which gives you more control than the global adjustments in Lightroom.
Of course, this all depends on how much time and effort you want to put into your processing, the TK panel does require an investment of learning curve time, it is not a one click preset solution.
BlockquoteFor me, the important element is the bit of opening in the woods (story: is it worth climbing the log to get there).
One of the things I struggle with is having an idea while standing in front of a scene, and then trying to convey that idea. Your idea of wondering if itās worthwhile to climb over the log resonates with me, and probably others here, too. Your representational take on the scene is lovely, but it doesnāt convey (to me, anyway) what you were thinking. To emphasize the idea of walking into the open space, it needs to be what our eye goes to first and/or be more prominent. To emphasize the idea of climbing over the log, the log needs to be there (obviously), but it canāt be an impediment to our āwalking intoā the frame.
In your current version, the evenness of the lighting in the scene doesnāt enhance the opening in the trees. And the horizontality (is that a word?) of the crop, with the prominent log across the bottom rather precludes our entry into the scene. I took the liberty of making a couple edits to illustrate what Iām thinking. I did three things - lightened up just the opening with a masked curve, took the invert of that mask and darkened the rest of the frame, and used the inverted mask for a hue/sat layer to desaturate the rest of the frame. I did the latter because with the layers, even set to luminosity mode, the forest outside the opening was too saturated, giving it too much attention.
I also cropped to 5:7 ratio, as I felt that the long length of the log added to the visual impediment. A 4:5 ratio might work too, but I wanted to keep as much of the larger scene, as possible.
If you decide to go with the TK actions, I highly recommend also getting @Sean_Bagshawās video series to learn how to use them. Not only will you learn how to use the TK actions, you will get an education on actually editing photos to convey your ideas and learn whatās possible. Their combo package gets 
from me!
Wow, lots of great ideas. I like the crop a lot and the color/luma work is a big help too. I feel the path into the woods is well framed now.
A question to all now: Whose work is this now? 
Chris
@Chris_Percival, hope I wasnāt too pushy! I get a lot out of thinking about these things, so itās helpful for me, too. 
Hey Chris, No doubt we all struggle with this. I look at it more like a tutorialā¦ a class youāre taking in photography. I struggle with the notion of altering someone elseās workā¦ but for me, the goal is not to make your work my own, but to help someone gain new perspective on a technique or how to look at an image, how to approach processing, etc. Opinions or techniques from others are but tools to add to the workbench. Perhaps the image āChaosā has been rendered a mosh pit of ideasā¦ and perhaps this image may have been lost to your intentionsā¦ but just maybe, your next image will be that much better.
Lon,
Well said and I do feel much more able to see and develop an image thanks to the input here.
