Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
I was focusing on grander scenes on this lake but was attracted by the patterns here.
70mm f/13 1 sec iso 100
The patterns are very interesting! The sprinkle of leaves is an unexpected juxtaposition, which adds to the interest. The DOF is very nice. My only suggestion would be to darken the individual leaves that are cut by the frame edge, and possibly then add a subtle vignette to serve as a framing element, but with a pattern like this I’m never sure if that is counter productive, and maybe a flat field is more desirable.
Wow, very cool pine needle pattern. Mother Nature made that scene especially for an observant photographer to see!
One suggestion might be to cool it a bit. The histogram shows clipping on both end, which is probably color clipping, not luminosity clipping. Cooling it gets rid of the right-hand side clipping and creates more depth, I think. I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the left-hand side clipping without totally ruining the colors.
I can see why you were attracted to the patterns. The combinations of leaves and needles is captivating. I agree with @Bonnie_Lampley about cooling the image to help with color separation.
I think Bonnie is on to something. One thing I would suggest for the future is to look for freshly fallen leaves and avoid the decaying ones. That, at least, is what I was trying to do for a similar composition a few weeks ago. My thinking is that there is a bit of a turn off for decaying matter. It sends the opposite signal of bright saturated colors.
Mario I agree with the suggestion of lowering a bit the light in general and cooling the clipping leaves. The yellow espetially burns so easily. Anyway I love the photo.
Thank you @Bonnie_Lampley @Igor_Doncov @Diane_Miller @Giuseppe_Guadagno @DeanRoyer for your suggestions and comments. I will cool the image a touch, seems there is a consensus.
Hmmm – interesting. The blacks don’t look crushed to me, and although the yellows are bright, to me they don’t look too saturated or blown out. If I wanted to reduce them I would go back to the raw file if possible and pull the Highlight slider down a little. That will show the histogram as you work. Or tweak the yellow saturation down a bit.
@Bonnie_Lampley, when I open the image in PS I see this histogram, which is steep on both ends but not blocked up. Caveat: when opening the sRGB in PS, it is necessary to convert it to your working space to see an accurate histogram.
I did a Camera Raw filter layer to get a slightly better look at the histogram than PS shows.
Thank you!!! I had always noticed that the colors were a bit off when I opened a downloaded file into PS, but didn’t know why. I used to open them directly into ACR (which didn’t have that problem), but now they won’t open in ACR (I get a error that ACR isn’t enabled, when it clearly is - sigh). Changed this one to ProPhoto after opening, and voila, the histogram looks fine.
@Mario_Cornacchione, please ignore my comments about clipping! 
Mario,
Awesome find! Love the bed of leaves - and maybe even more the pine needles. I love how they’re arranged - how they are grouped in small blocks, each in different and alternating directions. The little needles actually remind me of what the rivers looked like during the logging days when they would float the logs down a river. Very cool find.
An image like also provides quite a few options - like in cropping. So I looked for a little crop (tough to end up with clean, or somewhat clean edges) I also agree with the suggestions of others including slightly cooling the WB, and also dropping the whites/brightness a smidge. I dropped saturation a smidge - at the same time bumped the vibrance. Lastly, a slight vignette.
I don’t know if this edit is better, but again with a scene like this, it’s not hard to come up with some alternate views. Which also means you have a terrific image that allows all the options!
edit: forgot to mention. One of the reasons for the crop was to eliminate the brighter, “shiny” area in the LLC. In your original, that LLC looks a little brighter - or actually looks like this corner is non-polarized, and the rest of the image is polarized. Not sure if that makes sense, but the crop helped mitigate that corner.
Thank you @Lon_Overacker @Diane_Miller for your comments. Lon. I do like the crop and have incorporated it.
