The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This one was shot on a camping trip to Lost Lake a few years back (Check out what camera I was shooting with!). A near-full moon was high over Mt. Hood in the early morning hours. I liked the lighting, which was very different from what one usually sees with shots of Mt. Hood from Lost Lake. For this challenge I went back to the original file and started over.
Specific Feedback
The color palette is basically shades of blue. I tried converting to monochrome, but then decided to go back to color and desaturate by 20%.
Technical Details
Nikon D3, Nikkor 70-200mm @70mm, ISO 200, f/16, 304 secs. Processed in ACR and PS. In ACR, I made a mask of the mountain and added some texture and clarity to it. Sharpening with Topaz Sharpen.
Gorgeous!! Moonlight and water are a magic combination. I’m glad you revived this one so we can all enjoy it!
If I were granted a wish, it would be to add a tweak of canvas to the bottom so the tip of the reflection has a bit of breathing room. But it’s a small point for a beautiful image.
Oh, you bet!! If you have layers, make a composite layer on top (if you need the directions I should get back on it as I’m in the local bar enjoying a hard-earned Blue Moon before heading out to shoot a moonlight scene in the Alabama Hills, and I should look at my keyboard before I mislead you about the silly key combo. But after that just open the crop tool and drag the lower handle down to expand the canvas a bit. Then check content aware at the top. You may need to clone some artifacts and sometimes several small steps are best. Magic!
Back in the room now, with the Blue Moon not enough karma (but it was delicious anyway) as clouds are obscuring any hope of a sunset or moonlight. So – they key combination (hold down in sequence) to make a composite layer on top of the selected one (combining all the layers below the selected one) is, for Mac, Cmd-Opt-Shift-E, and for PC, Ctrl-Alt-Shirt-E. I used PCs for so long that now I have Cmd and Control, and Opt and Alt, stored in the same brain cells. Fustrating.
There used to be a menu item somewhere to do that but I haven’t been able to find it for years.
Thanks for the tips, @Diane_Miller! I finally got back to this post. Sorry I took so long. I made a copy of the original image with Cmd-J, then selected the copy and moved it upwards a smidge. Cropped to 3 x2 aspect ratio. Flattened the image. Then did a series of selections with the lasso tool, right-clicked, and used content-aware fill. I just added that version to my original post. I tried moving it up more, but the resulting fill did not look natural. So this is just a subtle edit. Hope you like it!
The final looks good, but I would suggest you try the expanded canvas with content aware fill for comparison. It will be a more elegant solution that will avoid a sharp divide where the moved-up version meets the bottom layer. Instead of lasso selections, which are hard-edged, a more elegant method is quick-masking, to get a selection, with a soft-edged brush. But for what you describe, if it’s at the bottom edge to smooth out the overlap edge, all you might need is the clone tool, maybe at a mix of 100% and more like 50% opacity.
I’m having trouble following you: with your method, what do I select for content-aware fill? What I did was lasso around the bottom, just above the sharp edge. Thanks in advance.
Content-aware will fill a new added canvas area. Select it and it will be filled from adjacent areas. Look at this recent thread about halfway down for a tutorial on content-aware fill:
