Kinkakuji Temple (Kyoto)

Thanks!!

To be honest, I think photoshopping ruined this image. I am particularly disattracted by a completely empty sky. Although I realize this type of manipulation often causes polarized opinions. Best regards, Vadim

Thank you Vadim for your comment. The original image had the sky burnt anyway, and a look of typical postcard (see above); otherwise I am particularly fond of this kind of watercolor effects in this ?pictures? images.

Hi Alfredo,

Thank you for sharing the original image. I see your argument about this image looking like a postcard and agree that the watercolor filter added a lot, particularly it made the reflection of the tree very interesting. I tried to play with the ?empty sky? problem as follows: I selected the entire sky using the magic wand tool, then changed the levels within this selection to make the sky extremely blue (looking ugly on the original), then applied the watercolor filter. This made the sky clearly visible, but an artifact band appeared along the entire skyline above the trees. I corrected this by the clone tool. You can see the result attached. It is not as pretty as yours because for good results this filter seems to require a higher resolution than the 400x400 of your posted original, so I anticipate your result will be better. You could also consider changing the hue of the enhanced sky color before applying the filter to achieve a better color ballance between the sky and the water. Thanks for engaging in this dialogue, I also like experimenting with the Photoshop filters, but find them working well not as often as I wish.

Best regards,

Vadim