The deal with my earlier Green River image is that I wanted to get there early enough to catch the morning fog, but could not bring myself to rise and shine. The resulting image was quite bright and cheery. The other images I took that day and mean to put into some sort of project are quieter and a bit dreary. So I fogged up the Green River image. To me, this image is certainly less decorative, but I am more inclined to visually linger over it.
Is this a composite: No
Added a gray layer to the Photoshop stack, and applied a lot of detailed masking. To show more luminosity on the nearest foliage.
Personally, I think it looks pretty realistic, but you might have blurred the BG trees a little too much, esp. the yellow ones near the middle. It’s really noticeable in the large version. JMHO
I think this is a very good start. I agree with @Michael_Lowe’s comments. The trees in the center do look a bit over blurred. I would also try to slightly lighten the color in the blurred areas.
@Steve_Kennedy@David_Bostock@Michael_Lowe
What is odd, is that noting is blurred, but obscured by the “fog”. All the original detail is present when the fog layers are hidden. What’s really odd, is that this morning, I thought that the illusion of depth was insufficient, so I added some additional gray in the distant center, except for some of the foliage. If I remove that additional gray, now I see that the increased luminescence in the distance gives the viewer more of interest to look at. See re-post,
I prefer it with the lighter center. The contrast has gone so low as give a muddy look – maybe an increase in brightness would be good. The low contrast has given a very strange look to the leaves and limb in the UR. The flattened tones can’t be saved in PS – head back to the raw file.
I’m suitably embarrassed to say I’m just now learning TK masking but maybe it offers a way to increase a foggy look?
Given where you started from in the very original Green River prior post, I think this is actually a fairly decent attempt at creating some digital fog. I think the lighter center helps, as in your rework above.
I hate to say it, but this isn’t working for me at all. The branch in the UR just looks plain weird. Without the lighter center the gray on the edges is really obvious, but even the rework just seems off. Real fog affects things differently than does a gray layer - it reflects and refracts light because it’s just millions of water droplets. It obscures details, but it doesn’t muddy the light as this effect has done. Sorry dude.
