Peruvian Amazon

First image is unedited except for resizing to post.

Couldn't get rid of the color cast. Tried different things, nothing seemed to work.

Decided to go to grayscale (B\W) with either a red or yellow filter effect.

What I was going for was that "slow down, sit down, chill out, destress and smell the rainforest" feeling.

Looking at this as posted I don't think I quite captured it.

Update!

Ok! This is where it stands now. This is after playing around with an assortment of layers, adjustments, gradients, etc.

Maybe not quite all the way to that chill out, de-stress, sit back, and smell the rain forest feeling, that I was trying to capture, but I do think it's close and I don't know what else I can do to get there. I'm thinking maybe this image may not be a good choice to work with. In any case, it was a good learning experience. I worked with tools and adjustments that up till now I've used very little or not at all. Comments, critiques, welcome.....Izzy

Many thanks for posting this photo for critique! I learn a lot from the comments of other members.

T be honest, I still prefer the original. It has a wonderful palette of pastel shades. These may be not exactly be the colors that you saw, and the photo may well have a definite color cast. But somehow, the original has plenty of 'mood' and a sense of 'mystery' for viewers like me who see it for the first time without knowing anything about it.

IHMO, neutralizing the color cast subtracts from the ''mood and the mystery' The neutralized photo is perhaps a more realistic representation of what you actually saw, but the photo then becomes more ordinary (less mood, less mystery, less interesting).

Very occasionally, serendipity intervenes to make 'faulty' photos' even more interesting/appealing than the intended or 'correct' ones. In the very few cases where that happens (as - IHMO - in this one), I think we should just be grateful!

Bear in mind too that digital photographers sometimes add 'color casts' (digital color layers) to make photos look warmer, cooler, etc. As did film photographers with filters.

Many thanks for posting this photo for critique! I learn a lot from the comments of other members.

 

T be honest, I still prefer the original. It has a wonderful palette of pastel shades. These may be not exactly be the colors that you saw, and the photo may well have a definite color cast. But somehow, the original has plenty of 'mood' and a sense of 'mystery' for viewers like me who see it for the first time without knowing anything about it.

 

IHMO, neutralizing the color cast subtracts from the ''mood and the mystery' The neutralized photo is perhaps a more realistic representation of what you actually saw, but the photo then becomes more ordinary (less mood, less mystery, less interesting).

 

Very occasionally, serendipity intervenes to make 'faulty' photos' even more interesting/appealing than the intended or 'correct' ones. In the very few cases where that happens (as - IHMO - in this one), I think we should just be grateful!

 

Bear in mind too that digital photographers sometimes add 'color casts' (digital color layers) to make photos look warmer, cooler, etc. As did film photographers with filters.

Mike you mentioned GIMP in a reply to one of my posts, and I do have it (4.8.22). Had it for a while but never used it. Went to a B&N at the time and picked up "The Book Of GIMP" and "GIMP 2.8 for Photographers" and they've been sitting in the bookcase gathering dust. Anyway I got to thinking and decided it was high time have a look.

That being the case I decided to run the pic through and see what'd happen. It's been a couple of days and memory's not what it used to be, but near as I can recall

Under "colors" I did "auto equalize"

Under "filters" I did "enhance" "despeckle" moved the slider from either 1 to 2 or 2 to 5

"sharpen" moved the slider to 10

Not much! But sometimes "not much" is all you might need!!

Mike you mentioned GIMP in a reply to one of my posts, and I do have it (4.8.22). Had it for a while but never used it. Went to a B&N at the time and picked up "The Book Of GIMP" and "GIMP 2.8 for Photographers" and they've been sitting in the bookcase gathering dust. Anyway I got to thinking and decided it was high time have a look.

 

That being the case I decided to run the pic through and see what'd happen. It's been a couple of days and memory's not what it used to be, but near as I can recall

 

Under "colors" I did "auto equalize"

Under "filters" I did "enhance" "despeckle" moved the slider from either 1 to 2 or 2 to 5

"sharpen" moved the slider to 10

 

Not much! But sometimes "not much" is all you might need!!

 

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I prefer this one by far. Compared to the original, there's much more detail, including the blue sky peeking through. The greens look very natural and the fog has been retained nicely. I'm on the fence as to whether it's a "wall hanger" or not. I trust that it's loaded with detail and could stand a 50" print. I'd need to see a smaller test print to make a final decision, but I think that it's promising.

I prefer this one by far. Compared to the original, there's much more detail, including the blue sky peeking through. The greens look very natural and the fog has been retained nicely. I'm on the fence as to whether it's a "wall hanger" or not. I trust that it's loaded with detail and could stand a 50" print. I'd need to see a smaller test print to make a final decision, but I think that it's promising.

Thankyou!

Aside from that.

Don't think 50" print would work. I'm not a pro or even a semi-pro. I'm not even sure if I'd qualify as an advanced amateur. Yes I do print out some of our (wife also shoots) images, but not large format. 8.5 x 11 or smaller and except for 4 x 6, I leave at least 0.5" border all the way around. Granted, we have sold some our images locally, to people who saw them, liked what they saw, and wanted something to hang up on a living room or office wall.

The full rez unedited scan from the neg measures 1650 x 1071 pixels (between 1.7 and 1.8 megapixels) I'm guessing that I scanned it at somewhere between 1000 and 1200 ppi, at a time when I had neither the storage capabilities nor scanner that I have now. Editing that to 165ppi would result in a 10 x 6.something, print. With modern photo printers you can actually go down to 100ppi and still get a perfectly ok print. Granted. It may not be museum or gallery quality, but if all you're looking for is something suitable for framing and displaying on that wall (other than a mural or near mural sized image of some kind), it's fine.

Remember, that 300ppi bogey goes back to a time when digital was more or less in its infancy. It's come a long way since then.