Most recent articles by @Alex_Noriega and @Ed_McGuirk have been well written, timely, and informative. Thank you gentlemen! Alex I’ve followed you for a couple of years and have learned so much from studying your work. Ed, really appreciate the spring foilage article since the yellow/green balance is something that I find particularly challenging.
I’ve been working on the attached image for about a week now and it very much is about capturing an intimate scene and the unique colors/light of spring time. I made the image in southern UT in the morning as the sun crested a hill and illuminated newly budded cottonwoods.
Would appreciate feedback on color balance and / or compositional elements. The green of the cottonwood leaves was quite brilliant so I’m trying to protray what I saw without overdoing the green/yellow vibrance. Critical appreciated.
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
I’m glad the article was informative, George! I haven’t had A chance to read Ed’s yet.
My first thought here is that I want to see the trees have some separation from the brush below. Maybe a cooler white balance would help with this. Or shifting the hue of the greens more toward green and away from yellow, while shifting the hue of the yellow brush more toward orange?
The green tree saturation may be tough to control as-is since it’s somewhat uneven, and even more so if it’s shifted toward green. I would look up the article on how to make Saturation Masks over at Luminous Landscape and use that method on the trees to even them out a bit. I would also give the rightmost tree some more saturation so it matches its breathren.
Lastly there are some bright tufts of brush along the bottom edge of the frame that I’d darken or clone out.
I like the image, I think it’s a nice composition and the way those spring greens pop against a dark background really is something!
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George, I’m glad that you that enjoyed the article, and thank you for your kind words about it.
This is one sweet shot that you have here, I love the composition and light. And your balanced processing of light and shadow shows great attention to your craft. This is about as good as spring color gets, when you have viewers guessing as to whether this is a spring or autumn image, unless you tell them.
Handling yellow and green requires a deft touch, especially when yellow is in direct light like this. But I think @Alex_Noriega has given you very good advice here. I use Tony Kuyper’s saturation masks in his Luminosity Mask Panel, it does a great job of targeting specific saturation levels and/or colors. Also Alex’s suggestion of shifting green more to green would help. My article talks about greens that are too yellow, and shifting yellow more to green, but where I live the hardwood trees are usually more predominately green with some yellow tones in spring. These cottonwoods are predominately yellow, but you want to enhance the minor green tones within them, which is what Alex suggested.
While I very much like your image as presented, the comments from you and Alex got me curious. So I downloaded it, and using a TK Saturation Mask on a PS Hue Saturation adjustment layer, reduced the most saturated yellow tones by 10, and then masked this change into only the cottonwoods (because I like the way you already have the grasses). I used the ACR filter to shift greens more to green to create color separation in the trees. This clearly gets deeply into the realm of subjective taste, but it does directionally illustrate some of what Alex discussed.
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George, this looks pretty dang good to me! Love the way you captured the brilliance of the new leaves and layered everything so well. Real nice work.
George, I like it a lot. The suggested changes are subtle and, as Ed stated, a matter of taste. I like the composition and the mood in the original image.
This reminds me of that oak tree grove in the Eastern Sierra. This looks like a perfect companion. I say this looks pretty dang good to me, George. @Ed_McGuirk’s change is subtle but very effective!
Beautiful shot George, I love the colors, textures and composition. Ed’s slight adjustments work for me but the original is nice too.
George,
It’s all about the light. And this one captures the light and colors beautifully. The back/side lit greens are set off nicely with the darker bg.
I love this just as presented. Well done!
Lon
@Alex_Noriega @Ed_McGuirk @Harley_Goldman @Blake_Randall @Lon_Overacker @Adhika_Lie @Han_Schutten
Thanks all for the feedback! Alex/Ed really appreciate the specifics! This one is getting the better of me so I’m gonna sit on this one and hit it again with ur suggestions in couple of weeks.
