I’m reprocessing images from the past. I never posted this for obvious reasons but thought I would sneak it in here. The stagnant salt water in these pools turns to this dark chocolate color which I found interesting enough to shoot. The rest is just coming up with an interesting composition.
Please comment on the upper triangle. Do you like either version of it? If not, what do you suggest?
@Bonnie_Lampley’s version: I have to say that this is a unique vision which l like very much. The fact that it’s different shades and tones of brown really works for me personally. It looks nothing like the actual subject but who cares.
What would the obvious reason be? This has a lot of interesting shapes and textures. The overall exposure is more or less the same across the scene - did you consider dodging/burning to give it more mood or contrast? That oval brownish shape in the foreground, surrounded by the white precipitates and between the lighter left frame and darker right frame feels like the main actor. I would try to bring that out. Anyway, that would be my inclination, but I don’t want to fiddle with it if your intent is to show a more “gentle” scene.
Feel free to fiddle. I don’t have any strong feelings about this image. To me it’s an abstract of pleasing colors and textures. There hasn’t been a lot of processing done because the light was excellent. Most of the work went into a crop for the composition you see here.
Love it! love it, love it love it. I love what you did. You’ve completely transformed it. There is a better balance of brown tones in my opinion. The brown mass on the right is now no longer on its own but better integrated with the rest. You must give me the PS recipe.
Gorgeous, Igor. I really like the abstract image here. I think most of the abstract images that saturate the market these days leverage on repeating pattern. This is a fresh take on that genre… utilizing minimal color and showcasing shapes. I like what @Bonnie_Lampley did too, mostly on the triangle on the top edge of the image.
Real nice abstract, Igor. I like what @Bonnie_Lampley did with it, as it really showcases the center rock. Maybe clone the bright rock in the lower left quadrant?
Igor, when this first came up, I said to myself, wow Igor has posted another grand landscape again, and then I saw your small scenes tag. I guess that’s part of what I like about this image. There is sense of scale, which invites the viewer to imagine what they are looking at.
I like the direction of what @Bonnie_Lampley did with her rework, the burning down of the top edge is an especially powerful change. And the idea of emphasizing the oval with local dodging and burning is a good one. While this is subjective, the added contrast in the whites in Bonnie’s rework goes slightly too far for my preference. I often find that a good way to emphasize a lighter toned element is to darken the areas around it, rather than increasing highlight contrast. Here is an alternate rework, that incorporates Bonnies concept of darkening the areas around the oval, while not changing the contrast in the oval or the whites. This is sort of a more gentle rendering of the oval, while still emphasizing it.
Thank you, Ed. Yours is somewhere between Bonnie’s and mine, being closer to mine. I think you (and Bonnie and Adhika) are right. That top triangle is an issue. I just don’t like its color. Yet, the original color was worse. It was actually very pale. Actually, I’ve lost my bearings. I should put yours up top and flip between the two. At this point I like the darkening you did but the color may be just a bit too saturated? Bonnie solved the issue by going dark without the color and darkening everything else.
And yes, the image has a moonscape feel to it.
Now that they’re side by side I notice a vignette, which brought out richer tones and colors. I didn’t see that in the comment.
Really like this image a lot Igor. After viewing all of the changes from Bonnie and ed re-work compared to the original I like what Bonnie did a lot but I think it went slightly too far so I would chose ed’s rework on this. I actually like the bright rock in the LLC. Here is my take on this image but I must say, I could play with this one all day long. I particularly love the blue vs. reddish brown color pallet in this image and so I selectively added some mid tone and lower highlight blue to the left side of the image to balance the blue in the ULC. I selectively popped just the highlights to make the whites stand out just a little bit more, and really played a lot with the dark brown section on the right side of the image. I increased the shadows quite a bit, Reduced the temperature, added in a tiny amount of tint, and added contrast making the whole section pop a little bit more. I even up the tones in the upper triangle and reduced the exposure just a bit. Of course, this is all just a personal take on this. I could start all over and probably come up with something entirely different which is what makes abstracts so fun to pay with. There really is no right or wrong.
Thank you for the changes, David. I think your handling of the ‘triangle’ is the best. The cooling of the image certainly changed things. Blue does go well with the cinnamon color.
What keeps fascinating me about this scene is that the salt (right?) looks like crashing waves, and my mind keeps going back from a ‘drone image’ to a detail one. Beautiful. As of the reworks, my vote goes to David’s one as well. I opened it next to your original, and the subtle touch of darker tones is just perfect! I like the color of the top triangle in it best too, it brought it closer to the color of the water on the right.
Of the three, I think Bonnie’s rework is the one that appeals to me the most although I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by David’s color, especially the blue.
I like this quite a bit Igor, at least the first version (the one on top). Why do you say you haven’t posted before for the “obvious” reason? Of all the versions posted by everyone, I still prefer your first version best and David’s second best.
