This is a second attempt at shooting this tree in the midday sun; taken at Lyme Park in Cheshire.
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Hey Ian, beautiful shot, I like the composition and the cheerful summer mood. I’m curious as to what photo editing software you are using as there seems to be a fair bit of haloing and loss of sharpness in parts of the image. Also the shadows in the middle of the tree look a bit unnatural to my eye. Technical issues aside this is a lovely shot.
Ian, great composition, but I also notice the there is some ghosting around the tree trunk and the main trunk even up into the branches is kinda weird looking. I like the rays coming in from the URC. There is some lens flare there also. It doesn’t bother me but I thought I would point it out.
Agree with the above comments…beautiful scene with very nice composition. Looks like some ghosting from HDR with cloud movement and/or camera movement?
Ian,
Have to concur with comments so far. I think the comp and the scene/photograph is outstanding as captured. The only thing for me worth noting, and to me it’s a bit obvious, is the brightness of the tree - mostly in the sky behind; as if the interior of the tree was lifted, but the sky was taken with it. Not sure what the circumstances were in processing, but I think it would better off to make sure the sky was consistent and approach the tree differently if you want to raise the shadows.
Most definitely worth working on as this is a beautiful scene.
Lon
Thank you @Blake_Randall, @Michael_Lowe, @Jim_McGovern, @Lon_Overacker for comments and suggestions. I’ve gone back to a previous version where I had not applied a GND filter in Color Efex and I think that has helped with the sky/tree area. I have also done some halo removal in PS. Hopefully this is now somewhere near where it should be !
The revision is much improved 
Ian, this is a great look at this tree and it’s surroundings. The repost looks nicely natural and inviting. If you’re working in PS, you can do a Alt/command click on the blue channel and get a blue luminosity mask. You can use that to gently darken the right hand side of the sky to even out what looks like a polarizer effect or you can use it to dodge the darker blues on the left.
Thanks @Mark_Seaver for the tip. I don’t use PS a lot ( mostly just Lightroom ) but will definitely look at that.
Agree with @Nathan_Klein that the revision is much better. Lovely composition and nice light, especially for mid-day. The tree trunk in the original looked way over-dodged or something, but the revision looks nice and natural, although I might dodge it just a little bit. Very inviting!
