This is from a few months ago during a visit to a local garden. I hadn’t visited in a while so I forgot that there is a little water fall there. The weather was overcast so the light was subdued and even.
Specific Feedback Requested
I did a fair amount of dodging and burning to try to put the emphasis on the main falls. The light colored rock near the LLC was rather bright in the RAW so that got the heaviest treatment. Are there any distractions pulling you toward the edges?
Also, I could only get so close to the falls so I was at around 50mm. As a result I had to focus stack (three frames). Photoshop’s auto stacking failed (I find that it fails for me more often than not) so I did it manually. Some areas were rather challenging. Any areas that seem out of focus in a distracting manner?
This has such a peaceful, easy, Garden of Eden feel to it Dean. Well done. I like that the lower falls is brighter than the upper, more distant one. Your processing is fine, and manual stacking looks great.
I never had luck with Photoshop’s stacking tool. If you are doing a lot of stacking, I recommend checking out Helicon Focus or Zarene. Both are very good and reasonably priced. I use Helicon Focus and have nothing but praise for it.
Beautiful scene. My eye goes right to the bright green and then left to the edge. It seems the bright green is the main subject since it’s the brightest part of the photo.
A wonderful, idyllic intimate scene. I’d echo @David_Bostock that Helicon seems to work much better for focus stacking. I think there may even be an NPN discount for this.
I also agree with @Matt_Payne that the luminosity distribution tends to lead the eye towards the left edge. In fact the two areas directly across from each other seem brighter than the main subject. With some dodging and burning you could both deemphasize those edge foliage areas and also open up a visual path from the foreground to the lower then higher falls.
Lovely little waterfalls and a nice choice of ss. The upper fall feels a bit crowded by the frame edges but there may have been some competing details you needed to exclude.
Hey Dean, totally agree with the others about the green saturation and brightness on the left side, and the relative dimness of the primary subject, the falls. This is a really nice scene, though, and I think some adjustments can really bring it home!
In addition to the issue with the falls and the left side green, I also think there are some distractions elsewhere. Diane mentioned the falls at the upper right feeling cramped - I think that’s because of the contrast of that dark sliver and the lighter sections. There are also dark patches along the left side of the upper edge. Even more important than these areas, the green foliage from the left comes awfully close to the waterfall and is quite bright, so again it becomes a distraction.
All of this can be fixed by lightening the too-dark sections and dimming the too-bright spots.
I would also dodge the falls up with a (slightly bluish) white color, as suggested before.
Then, for color, I would significantly desaturate greens, slightly desaturate yellows, cool down the whole image, and then bring up overall saturation a bit to compensate. This way the saturation should be evened out overall.
Thanks, David, Matt, Jack, Diane, and Alex. After looking again at this image a few months later in preparation for posting it here I noticed the left edge luminosity issue so good to hear that I am not alone in that. Alex, thank you again for your very detailed feedback. I am going to try a re-edit with all of the helpful critiques!
