To be honest, I had a rather hard time with this one and I’m still not 100% happy with it - especially with the sky so I’m really curious to see what you guys can do with it.
TN2023-_MG_7272.CR2 (37.5 MB)
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Thanks for taking a stab at this @jorma ! I think you did a great job and I really like our sky. It’s much better than mine. 
Tom,
What a grand viewpoint. Love the opening showcasing the building structure and “tower.” Not familiar with the location… I was just going to call it a castle… but what do I know?
Speaking of the tower, that’s what I wanted to emphasize. Increase the drama in the sky, including emphasizing the light leaking through the clouds. So admittedly, more emphasis via dodging that I expect was reality. But there is most certainly rays of light in the sky, which gave me the go ahead to exploit.
I cropped further, although I’m not happy with the resulting LLC. Here’s my take:
Various layers including the TK Lights TP to bring out the snow in the pines up front and brighten the open field. A Saturation layer to reduce the red leaves in the pines (not understanding that…) but some work to bring more attention to the structure/tower.
Thanks for posting the challenge! I can’t speak for anyone else, but I find these challenges to be a great way to hone our processing craft… Thanks Tom!
Hey @Lon_Overacker , thanks for having a go with this image. I think it looks very good and I like the tighter crop. The sky looks rather nice too.
The tower you see here is a basically a tourist attraction in the Czech Republic. There are these viewing towers all over Europe that hikers can climb up and enjoy the views. Most are free but you have to pay for some like this one. Although it kind of looks like a medieval castle it was actually only built a few years ago and also has a restaurant in the bottom building part where they do weddings and such. The hiking culture is a lot different in Europe than what we’re used to here in North America. There are often huts or restaurants along the trails where you can pop in for lunch or a beer. Trails in the mountains often have chair lifts to take you high up even before you start hiking, etc. It’s much more of a wilderness experience here where you often only have a trail (many time an unofficial one) and nothing else.
Like you, I also rally enjoy these challenges. I find it really interesting and fun to process images that I haven’t shot myself and that I don’t have a memory and an emotion attached. I think it frees me in my processing and like you say allows me to really hone my craft.
