lokbaintan Floating Market scene

Perfect exposure Randy.The digital procedure gave very warm tones to this photo, a sight that you don't see every day.The whole scenery is unusual, full of life and human ingenuity.Best regards

eTh very orderly scene though common in Thailand and Vietnam was captured and composed perfectly. If not for the photoshop details and colors will somehow scatter the viewer's eye. It's like a realistic painting. It is very educational, for the books, if real colors were shown. 

If I had the time, interest and writing skills required, I would like to think I would have written a critique along the lines of that which John A has generously contributed. I find myself in agreement with most of what he wrote in both of his comments.

Heaping praise upon a mediocre image is one thing, but lauding an image with so many glaring shortfalls in composition, exposure and PP as technically well done or having perfect exposure is just plain wrong. The scene itself is undeniably photogenic. With a more carefully considered composition to rein in the obvious fact that the scene, composed as it has been, was going to exceed the sensors limits or the use of a split ND filter or bracketed exposure blending and some craftsmanship in post production this scene could have had far greater potential. Looking through Randy's photos he does have a good eye, hopefully somewhere down the road he will outgrow the garish and frankly amateurish treatments and concentrate on honing his craft.

The more I look at this the more I dislike it. To me it doesn't look like a painting, just a good photograph that was ruined by a crude and overzealous Photoshop job. The tones are not only instantly unbelievable - almost all of them, from the horizon to the near foreground - but harsh to the eye. I can infer what the capture looked like, and I'm sure it was an excellent photograph.

i think it,s wonderfull and i can just apreciate it

a wonderful image full of life. vibrant composition. makes for a great travel photograph. the contrats of high key (light) tones of the backdrop work perfectly with the foreground to create a dream like mood. well balanced for this shot. i think greater sharpness can be achieved. i find this image better edited than i find it technically appealing

I would like to add few words.
For me this is not digital art, it is just a photo that was post processed (some people like it, others don't like it).
For me it is strange that some purists consider a photo as not photo if we just add some colours in some parts of photo and when we substract all colours from all parts of photo then it is pure photo. They call it B&W pure photography.
For me both unprocessed and processed are photos. Just my opinion (not a dogma).

Thanks Randy for posting the original image. I think it is far better than the edited version. So much more real and believable and I feel I can be there (almost, because obviously I wasn't there). The composition now gives me a different view, that it would have made a fantastic panoramic, slicing off the excess (and blown) topper most part of the sky (the sun is hardly ever in the right place when you observe a superb scene as this). Also cropping equally the excess foreground of water. What a superb panoramic this original shot would make from the natural exposure. The prints would fly!

I see too much PS and not what I want to see which is the people. Willie the cropper is likely right about cropping the blown out sun. Its always uncomfortable to look directly at the sun so we just naturally try to avoid it. Just covering the image with my hand makes it more pleasant to view. Sometimes we want to keep or include more than is needed, the blazing sun detracts rather than improves the tone and mood. Of course this presents another problem which is it seems a bit pancaked, not enough height for the width.
The unreality makes it less intimate.

I looked at the port as well as this one. Clearly a tough choice between them.

Yes, it has that surreal/painting look to it. I think it's the slightly over saturated colors that give it that feel. I think it's a fine example of bending the rules to get an outstanding image.

That said, I'm not a big fan of PhotoShop. On the other hand, it's not how you got it, long as you got it.

GaryR

Beautifull tones and color

Wonderful life image, great composition, light and colors. An eye candy, definitely.