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The scenery as such I like very much - a classic. And because I am no post processing specialist take my comment for what it's worth, but I see some discrepancies in tonality between and around the branches. However, I like this very impressive proposal!!! Compliments and regards, El

El, I would not expect anything less from your keen eyes! Yes, you caught me! In darkening the gray of the sky to make it more ominous and interesting I picked up that tell-tale post processing halo. I was hoping to get away with it because of the variability of the light in the sky. I liked the shape of this tree and the subtle elliptical shadow beneath it. Thank you for your honest and studied comment!

 

Warm regards,

 

Dick

Congratulations, this is a great landscape whit light and color excellent.

This is an excellent image in both its simplicity and detail. I really like the symmetry of the trees, kinda like identical twins who are not quite identical. I agree with El in the tonal differences, but there is a rather easy PS fix that I'll describe--without making any assumptions of your PS prowess. With the Lasso tool, draw a highly feathered selection around the inside of the tree, near but not too near the edges. Then create a curves adjustment layer and tweak until you've equalized the tonalities. Now select the brush tool with the foreground color set to black, opacity between 20-75% and the brush diameter set to just below the width of the tree trunks. Paint over the trunks to bring back their lighter details. Lower the brush diameter as you move up the tree branches. Voila! And, as with every thing in PS, there are many ways to achieve a desired result. Cheers!

Thank you, Paolo and William!

 

William, thank you also for your generous advice about PS. I am post processing with Aperture on an iMac. I was wondering if I could use a feather tool and lightly burn over the halo areas? Any thoughts?

 

Best regards,

 

Dick

Wow, Dicky...this is magnificent. You have the knack of taking simple shots and turning them into fantastic images. I tip my cap to you. 7/7 all the way. Fantastic, my friend. Regards, Lawrence

Thank you, Lawrence! I was driving to a friend's house to help him get started uploading photos to PN when I saw this tree. It was a blustery day and I thought this tree looked like it was waiting patiently for better weather.

 

 

Good night!

 

Dick

Thank you very much, Marc!

This conveys greatly about the winter and snow. good contrast here. I think one only thing I would suggest is to increase the brightness (levels) slightly.

Thank you, Lalit! The contrast/brightness adjustment for this image was/is tricky. I tried to find the best balance on my monitor, which seems to always be a bit brighter than what is posted on PN.

 

Regards,

 

Dick

Dick, guess I am odd man out, your image is very visually pleasing the trees are the focal point of the image,close to being perfectly symmetrical, but more importantantly the brightness shrouding the trees makes the trees stand out much more than if the trees background was similar to the rest of the sky. Wouldn't change a thing.Cheers-Ross

Thank you, Ross! I'm with you on this one. I think I spent more time processing this shot than any other I've taken. Everytime I work with an image, I learn a bit more about my program, Aperture. It is fun and frustrating at the same time. Photoshop does not seem to be user friendly to me, but I have only limited experience with it. It's on my computer at work, but it's CS2 and has not been upgraded to deal with the RAW images from my camera. This continues to be an adventure and a challenge.

 

Have a warm day:-)

 

Dick

Lovely!

Thank you, R Rivera!

Excellent work!! (6)

Thank you!