Hi all, this is my first post and wished to start it with a bang. I started getting serious about photography this past March and have been ravenous in my learning composition and gear acquisition since.
I found this scene while in Payson, Arizona this past month. It was the tail end of Fall and the last of the Fall colors were on display. I felt slightly sad as Fall is a majestic time. So when working this image I was thinking of this photo as the final take of 2019’s Fall majesty at least in Payson, Arizona.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
If I missed something technically, let me know. No pulling punches. I want to learn.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Any and everything. Did I juice the colors too much? Vignette too much?
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Nikon D750, Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 @ 18mm f/11 ISO 100 for 1/3sec. Ran this image through Lightroom and Photoshop. Tried out TK Panel with Midtone luminosity mask for first time thanks to you all!
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michaeltomcalphoto
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Michael, welcome to NPN, this is a really nice first post. Shooting in late autumn can have it’s advantages, adding some nice touches such as the fallen leaves on the rocks and water. So this image does have a nice story in that regard.
“Did I juice the colors too much? Vignette too much?”
Saturation can be a very subjective thing. Globally, this image does not look over-saturated to me. My personal choice would be to de-saturate the reds slightly (HSL red saturation slider in Lightroom would do it), sometimes localized adjustments to saturation can help better balance the saturation throughout the image. To my taste the vignette feels a bit strong, it has become especially obvious in the trees in the upper corners.
Your composition works pretty well, with good framing created by the rocks and trees. I’m a little torn about including the bald sky in the image though. A viewers eyes get pulled to the brightest part of the scene. In my opinion that works against you here, because I think the lower part of the image is the most appealing, with it’s interesting colors, shapes, and textures. Eliminating the sky would allow the viewers eye to linger more on all the goodness below. You may want to consider a panoramic crop that eliminates the sky. If you don’t mind, I re-worked your image to give you an idea of how that might look. I also slightly darkened the leaves in the water, and de-saturated the reds slightly.
Michael,
First off welcome to NPN. Wonderful first post! The saturation looks good to my eye, but everyone is different. I really like the story here with the fallen autumn leaves and meandering stream; it looks like a peaceful scene of the changing seasons. I like @Ed_McGuirk’s small tweaks as they had made a beautiful image even stronger IMO. I look forward to your future posts and comments.
Michael, welcome to the NPN community and a beautiful first post. I like the image as presented but @Ed_McGuirk suggestions are an improvement IMO. I do like your choice of including the boulder anchors on the lower corners of the image. I hope to see more of your work here on NPN, it’s a great place to grow as a photographer.
Welcome to NPN! What a wonderful first nature and landscape post!
Honestly, I think Ed covered it all and I would just be repeating… While I think the vignette in general is most often very, very effective, I’m not sure the vignette improves things here. If anything, yeah, you might back off the vignette and make it less subtle. for me, the reduced luminosity in both the UL and LL corners doesn’t help. I really like Ed’s adjustments - including the eliminating of the patch of sky. These are of course difficult scenes to include or exclude those patches, but in this case I think there is plenty of interest and beauty to not include that patch.
We look forward to more images and your participation! Welcome aboard!
Welcome to NPN! Thank you for diving in! I agree with much of what has been said with regards to processing, composition, etc. I do like this image very much. It’s a splendid forest scene, something that attracts my attention very easily scrolling through the forum.
I have one on-location idea to consider for future shoots. Slight tweaks in positioning and crop can eliminate the bright highlights of the sky as has already been mentioned. But for the bright areas in the water, you might consider a polarizing filter to break through that reflection.
I also have one minor consideration for post processing. The wide angle lens appears to have caused some distortion leading to an outward slanting of the trees. Or maybe that’s what they look like. Nevertheless, it’s a slight distraction to me. If you haven’t done so, you might see what the lens profile correction does in Lightroom. That might compensate for it. If that doesn’t straighten them up, you can do additional manual distortion correction in Lr or Ps.
Definitely see this in the Reds popping too much unrealistically for the scene. My goal is to make color seem balanced and even if that makes sense. Ill take down the reds in the selective color adjustment layer I have in PS.
I will also dial back the vignette a bit as my suspicions we’re confirmed by you and the other reviewers. Thanks!
I love the crop idea. Never occurred to me. I was frustrated with the white in the sky and the water that day which @Adam_Bolyard alluded to as well. I will definitely Polarize exposures like this in future. Would the polarizer have brought in more blues into the sky and lighting in these conditions hypothetically?
Yep that’s definitely distorted. I will manually correct this as the LR correction didn’t work so great on this. Thanks for pointing this out!
I am super grateful for all the thoughtful feedback. NPN is definitely the never ending photo workshop to me! I look forward to posting more photos for critique and giving back on discussing images posted here with my 2 cents. I am so excited to learn from you all!
Here is the reworked version! Let me know about any small corrections. The crop was challenging for me. I might need to marinate on this just to make sure the balance of elements seems right to me.
It’s hard to know if the polarizer would have deepened the color in the sky. It’s possible if the light was at the right angle. A polarizer works best on the sky when the sun is about 90° from where you’re pointing the camera. It would cut through glare and haze some regardless and can have a nice saturating effect on colors within the scene.
I’d tend to say that leaving the sky out of a forest scene like this works best. It adds a sense of mystery with that lighter area off I the distance where the sun is just starting to poke through.
Michael, welcome to NPN. This is a fine first post of a lovely scene. I think your composition works very well, using the trees from the left and the stream from the right to pull the viewer’s eyes into the distance. Yes, the “white sky” and the bright trees in the distance are a minor distraction, that you might be able to fix by burning them in further. The lighting looks like a mild overcast, which is outstanding for letting fall colors show, but often means keeping the sky out of the image. I like the realism of the original colors.
