turning a good shot into a great print

[woodentom]

i have loads of good shots i have taken and though i know PS backwards I am questioning my own end product. i would like to start giving some photos i have taken to my family as a thank you but am constantly banging my head as i don't know if what i have is the best i could have done.

a good example:-

the original is

http://www.woodentom.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/original.jpg

my 2 attempts are here (1 is a pdf cause it would not save as a jpg for some reason)

http://www.woodentom.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/copy.jpg

http://www.woodentom.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/copy1.pdf

please let me know what you think and if they could be improved in amyway or if i am going down the wrong path.

after looking at this shot for so long it is all a blur

thanks
tom

[rammy]

Nice composition. The back half of the scene seems soft to me. Where did you focus, on the rocks in foreground? They seem sharper. F9 aperture should have been good enough for front to back sharpness depending on where you had the hyperfocal distance.

The B&W and Sepia ones need more contrast.

[Robert_Lay]

I would say rammy has it nailed.

You might provide a full detail 100% crop of the upper part of the picture, just to settle the issue of focus and sharpness.

[Dchemist]

In addition to the previous comments, I would suggest that the people to whom you give your prints will appreciate them immensely, without questioning if they are the best you could do. You will find that the "best you can do" will evolve over time and an image you work on today and print will be quite different than the same image worked on a year from now and printed again. Good luck, Dennis

[RedHot]

The greenness, brightness, or lack of contrast i the trees at the top of the image give a rather weak B&W appearance. And your original has too much green - balance out your color levels.

Try different B&W combinations. PSE 5 has a B&W conversion helper that allows your to add or take away red, blue, green, or contrast and see how it would change the B&W conversion. Image sharpness is another issue.

I don't think it's your 17mm and f9 that is as much of a problem as the brightness of the trees/background with such a dark stream. You basically needed a graduated ND filter to darken the top portion of your image and still expose the stream properly. The too bright trees/background is coming across as not sharp because it is so bright.

[woodentom]

thanks for all your help

i will grad the top half then play around with the b&W. i have been using a filter called BWstyler which uses diffusion filters to soften the image which i thinks looks good.

i will play around with the contrast as well.

results to follow