Misty morning

A shot from a recent trip into the redwoods. It was a foggy/misty morning with the sun finally starting to show after about a week of rain.

Specific Feedback Requested

Always looking to improve my photos. Pretty new to using LR and have never tried out PS. Is there anything missing here or is there something that needs to be enhanced or removed? Thank you for the feedback!

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
100mm ISO 500 f. 5.6 1/320 sec- Used some sliders here and there. Really not that much with post processing. I am still so new to editing.

@love_4_the_outdoors

John, this caught my eye right away. I see dreamy, misty wonder in this image. I love the central light and sun rays coming down. The moss hanging from the branches is so cool, and really adds to the scene.
You’ll have fun learning Lightroom, and Photoshop too. I’m new to Photoshop myself. If it were mine I might see if I like a slight vignette to darken around the edges, but there is plenty of light in the middle to draw the eye so a vignette might not be helpful. I experiment and see what I like. Stay true to your vision! Beautiful moody scene!

Hi John - the redwoods are heavenly and this shows that well. However I think it’s a lot to look at in once scene. Wide angles like this can be chaotic so sometimes going in tighter reveals the strength of a photo. There are tons of tutorials and courses that will help with Lr and with Ps. I’ve been using Lr for over a decade and am still learning new things. I’ve only been using Ps for a few months, but the expertise here on NPN is huge.

Anyway, I brought this into Ps for some Camera raw adjustments and some dodging, burning and obviously a crop to what I think is the heart of the image. I hope you don’t mind.

I chose to frame the sunlight coming through and added some clarity and deepened the shadows around the edges, effectively creating a slight vignette. The highlights though were blown out and troublesome. I’ve tried to tame them as best I could while retaining the light rays themselves. Maybe some food for thought. It’s a restful scene and makes me want to be among the giants again.

This is a wonderful forest scene with some amazing light rays, John. Forests by nature are chaotic and messy and hard to isolate the key elements. I really like the direction @_Kris was taking this with her rework. I think it has all the elements you need with the rays and those main trees with nothing else extra needed. This had to be lovely to witness this first hand.

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John, I like how you’ve framed this, with the trunks on the sides, the vegetation below and the backlit branches at the very top. Forests are often busy, which can enhance the exploration. This view includes that business well even as it emphasizes the light rays.

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A great forest scene. Kris’s tips are excellent and show that post-processing can enhance this shot. But I think you’re coming at this the right way by letting your eye do the main work. Sometimes I wish I had to live without PS for a while!

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Thank you @_Kris for the input I really like how you brought out out some of the details and added that extra brightness/green to the branches . I appreciate you taking the time to do this.!

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