Specific Feedback Requested
Any comment is welcome. How does this image make you feel?
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Hello Ricardo, welcome to NPN. This is a wonderful first image. I like how the trees seem to compliment each other to form a screen to the mysterious forest behind. Well seen. My only suggestion would be to either crop or clone out the out of focus shrub in the lower right corner. It takes away from an otherwise very fine image.
Regards,
David
Thank you David. I completely see your point. It will be a challenge to make the crop you suggest and maintain the proportions I want for green and orange, as I like this image in a 3:2 ratio, but I will implement your suggestion to see the result. Thank you.
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Ricardo, seja muito benvindo a NPN. Que bom ter alguém de Portugal aqui. I simply love Portugal – not only because it colonized Brazil, where I come from.
Your image takes me back to our 29-day travel around beautiful Portugal. The dense vegetation and color palette are captivating in your image. I especially like the white tree barks offering highlights in that mysterious scene you captured. The green bushes at the bottom of the photo provide an anchoring point to the overall image and accentuate the tree’s height and colors.
Regarding the point that @David_Bostock brings up, I am not bothered by the bush. Rather than cloning it or cropping the image, I think you could easily decrease the highlights in that LRC. I do find it somewhat distracting, but it is because of its brightness/luminosity. A radial filter could easily reduce the highlights and luminosity there to match the rest of the bushes in the foreground.
I do have a question about the sharpness. Did you add some sharpness to the image? The tree leaves look over-sharpened, but I recall that sometimes happens with fall leaves.
This is a beautiful image and very true to the majestic countryside of Portugal.
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Hi Ricardo and welcome to NPN. 
I can see how a crop would have negative results so maybe a little “Content Aware Fill” or careful cloning work would solve the issue of the OOF foliage in the LRC?
Or… maybe just lower the luminosity as @EgĂdio suggested?
Just state whatever edits were done to help everyone learn.
Either way, I really like this, I like the diverging and converging lines, the contrast between the greens, yellows and browns, the lichen covered tree trunks, the appearance of motion blur from flying leaves or ???, the highlights and shadows along with the darker areas within the trees to form a nice sense of depth and the almost glowing FG foliage.
I am curious how you managed to get motion blur and sharp leaves at the same time.
Nice work
Looking forward to more of your work
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Welcome to the NPN community, Ricardo. This is an amazing place to learn and contribute. Your first post is a wonderful scene that looks like it would be a great place to hike. As some of the others have indicated, a little more information is very helpful in given you valuable feed back. Such as your camera settings, or post processing adjustments/techniques and also what you were thinking and why you took the photo. I look forward to many more of your images from Portugal.
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Welcome. Glad you’re here. I like the image. It has nice textures. However, the image looks a little “crunchy.” Did you do a lot of sharpening? I also noticed the out of focus branch in the lower right and, personally, would remove it. Otherwise, great image.
Olá @EgĂdio. É sempre bom ter a lĂngua portuguesa presente nestas comunidades. I continue now in English so that everyone in the community can participate and understand us. Thank you very much for your opinion and I sincerely think that the idea of adjusting the brightness of the problematic corner of the image is an excellent idea. I will test several possible solutions.
About the question you ask about sharpening, I totally understand what you say, but this photo didn’t take any sharpness at all and the explanation for what you notice in the photo is different. What I wanted to do on this day was to take advantage of the fact that it was snowing and I wanted to explore techniques of longer exposures with the snow falling (0,5s to 1s), with the woods as a background. However, the snow slowed down and ended up not taking prominence in the image. However, it is there and the effect of the tiny snowflakes causes a veiling that gives a painterly look and at the same time it looks as if the photograph had lots of sharpness. But, believe me, it didn’t take sharpness at all.
Thanks for your contribution.
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Hello @Chris_Baird. Thank you a lot for your opinion. Yes, that branch in the lower right corner is a problem and with the advices of you all it will be treated. Regarding the sharpness you feel, I totally understand what you say, but this photo didn’t take any sharpness at all and the explanation for what you notice in the photo is different. What I wanted to do on this day was to take advantage of the fact that it was snowing and I wanted to explore techniques of longer exposures with the snow falling (0,5s to 1s), with the woods as a background. However, the snow slowed down and ended up not taking prominence in the image. However, it is there and the effect of the tiny snowflakes causes a veiling that gives a painterly look and at the same time it looks as if the photograph had lots of sharpness. But, believe me, it didn’t take sharpness at all. When seen in a larger size (printed, for instance, this effect of the snow looks very nice, and it becomes very clear what it is. Posting this image at this size wastes the effect.
Thank you.
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Hi @Mervin Rosenquist. The leaves are sharp, this was done at 1/80s on a tripod (100mm lens at f/2.8, ISO 1250). This is explained with the story of this photograph. I wanted to explore snow blur with the woods at background. With my lack of experience on shooting snow (unfortunately I don’t have a lot of opportunities to photograph snow in Portugal), I tried slower shutter speeds such as 0,5s and 1s. Of course the snow disappeared (what was I expecting?) and started to increase the shutter speed step by step until a reasonable effect. At 1/80s I gathered this image where the snow flakes falling are blurred but visible and everything else is in sharp. It looked immediately to me as a painting and very dreamy, very ethereal, and I liked it. The problem is that this size does not show this, but printed in a large size it looks wonderful (and very clear what is happening in the photograph). Try to pinch with your fingers to see if you find what I’m talking about.
Thank you very much.
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Hi, @linda_mellor, you are totally right. I tried to redeem myself with the explanation I gave to @Merv . Thank you for your advice.
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Ahh. I understand now. I guess upon looking closely and knowing it is snowing, I can kind of see it.
These woods do have an animated look to them. There is a spirit to them. The blurry snow may have something to do with it but I’m not sure. One thing you could consider is the brightness of the bushes at the very bottom. If you crop just above the brighter bushes you will see the difference. Is that preferable? I think it may be better cropped.
Ricardo,
Welcome to NPN! What a wonderful first image posted.
My initial impression was that I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. Next I felt this was quite painterly, or impressionistc. But also then I thought, hmmmm over sharpened?.. Then, I opened up the larger view and saw the explanation. Your dialogue and responses to comments have further brought more clairity and I’m the more impressed.
I wouldn’t normally take the liberty to alter a new member’s image for fear of an unknown reaction to someone altering their work… But I felt best to demonstrate my comments. You’ve have already acknowledged the comments, but my primary suggestion was to deal with the oof (out of focus) leaves/bush in the LRC - lower right corner. IMHO, which it is not that distracting, it ends up a distraction in the sense that it’s an overlooked item. I was monumentally surprised how well the content aware cloning did in PS. I also slightly cropped (mainting the ratio you desired) to further help with the cloning. The only other minor adjustment was to tame the whites of the trunks in the URC. Not a biggie. Oh, and added a very slight vignette.
This is wonderful image and falls in to my own criteria of making an image “the best it can be.” I hope this helps.
We look forward to your images and your participation in the forums and galleries.
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Welcome aboard Ricardo
Nice to have you here.
The OOF bush on the LRC really is a distraction. I would crop that out.
I kind of like the direction @Lon_Overacker is pointing.
I’m particularly look forward to see more of your wonderful images .