This was taken last week in Rickets Glenn State Park in Pa. I took a day trip there to capture the beauty of the fall colors and the waterfalls on this trail. Walking down this challenging trail, I couldn’t help but think how lucky I was to be able to see such beauty. I was interested in finding photos that showed off the colors we get in the fall. They don’t last that long, so it was my time to capture their beauty. It’s hard in steep gorges like this to find area’s without fallen trees and debris in the way. When I saw this, it looked like the leaves were surrounding the little waterfall.
Specific Feedback Requested
I’m hoping that the amount of leaves around this waterfall doesn’t look too cluttered. Let me know if you think that. Any other suggestions welcomed too.
Technical Details
Sony a7r iv 24-70mm @ 70mm
f/14
ss/1/8
ISO 800
CR - tone
Topaz DeNoise
Photoshop - cleanup, lots of D&B, Hue/Sat
Nik Color Efex Pro 5 - contrast
I love small scene images like this. I think the lovely composition greatly reduces the clutter as an issue, with the leaves making a frame around the water. I’d much rather have leaves like this than fallen logs and intruding branches.
I agree with Diane, this is a lovely image. For me, it creates a gentle, soothing feeling, and I can hear the water gurgling and running through the scene. A photo that creates an emotion, with plenty to explore. Cheers.
This is a clever composition where you made the contours of the leaves match the shoreline of the falls. I suppose you could do a small crop from the bottom of the area that doesn’t follow your main intention. Or not.
Excellent composition using the river and the tree leaves to open a path through the image. I might crop the top of the image just enough to remove the dead branches intruding into the scene from the URC but that is a very small nit. I love all of the rock shelves along the rivers edge that have caught the fallen leaves. I agree with @joaoquintela that the brighter parts of the water could be toned down just a smidgen.
Hello Donna, I am by no means an expert here. I loved the way you framed the water with the leaves in fact, that made the image very interesting for me. I hope this is ok, but This also helps me practice and learn.
But wanted to share a few things I have learned from watching some experts share in the editing world. some minor edits
So when I first looked at this, I wanted the yellow to pop a bit more (but gain that is a creative decision I would have made not to say it is correct), And I wanted to focus the eye on the relationship between the leaves and the water and keep the eyes off the edges.
in this images, In Lightroom, I wanted to warm it up a bit by temp +5
highlights down -30
whites up +9
added a bit of texture +14
added a little light in the yellow with luminance slider +3 (HSL/COLOR)
in the calibration area, I played with the RGB saturation and only liked it a Red +25, but it was fun trying different settings
I did burn (-.30) around the edges, and anywhere it was a bit bright I tried to screenshot the mask, but it didn’t work; another day, I will figure that out.
Then to finish it off, I added a Slight vignette -30 Midpoint 66 roundness +9 and feather 54. Most of the time, the default works, but on this one, I felt that the vignette was too sharp. I needed to tone the vignette, so it was not obvious.
@Diane_Miller@Phil_G@joaoquintela@Igor_Doncov@David_Haynes Thank you all for your very nice comments. I’m very happy that no one thought it was too busy. I thought the leaves following the stream was very unusual. I’ll take the suggestions from several of you to tone down the water in the LLC and I’ll try a small top crop as suggested by David. Thanks again.
@ariel Thanks for sharing your edits. I’m all about learning and think your small treks improved this image. I’m always concerned about over saturating to a point where it doesn’t look real. I think sometimes I under saturate because of this. I’ll work with your adjustments to see what I can do with them. Glad you found my image interesting. That’s what it’s all about!
