Snowy River

[slm95]

Would like some comments and opinion please.
F8,1/250,200 iso, 18mm

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/8861/snowrivertg7.jpg

[lbcyalater]

I really like this but I feel it would look better if you cropped out the top half. I think it would make it a stronger picture

[Garrian_Guitars]

I was just going to say the same thing. Just give me the river. I love the shapes and textures of the ice and water. The houses are just distracting. Great capture tho, the main subject definitely draws in my interest.

[Apollo11]

Agree with the others. With the bend in the river you want the mystery of where it will lead. The upper portion shows where it will lead, though, and the group of homes as its destination isn't too exciting.

[slm95]

Thanks for the comments, I agree a crop would suit this picture nicely.

[imagesbylinda]

Beautiful shot. I can almost feel the peacefulness of this place.

[jrm27]

is this in Colorado? Looks very familiar! nice shot!

[slm95]

is this in Colorado? Looks very familiar! nice shot!

Good eye!, I took it on the bridge in edwards, riverwalk path.

[Bill Boehme]

Stuart,

It looks like a very beautiful scene, but the framing doesn't quite seem to do it justice -- perhaps because the horizon is placed so high in the frame and the foreground elements seem to be a bit too dominant for a landscape type image. The only problem that I see with the homes in the distant background is that they are not large enough to be interesting elements in the scene, but not necessarily a distraction.

Technically, some of the post processing adjustments done in Lightroom do not seem to be consistent and I suspect that some of the default settings may not be correct. It appears that the image may have been underexposed since +1.15 EV Exposure compensation was added, while also applying a Recovery amount of +25 and also a Blacks amount of +14. Both of the latter two adjustments serve to partially undo the exposure compensation in the dark and light areas of the exposure while, at the same time increasing the quantization noise level in the darker areas (I noticed some blocking of details in the darkest areas of the image). A more effective solution might have been to use the Brightness and Contrast controls to adjust the midtones without significantly disturbing the darkest and lightest tones. It is possible that the current default settings in your copy of Lightroom could be the source of some of your post processing problems. I am wondering about the Lightroom defaults for Brightness and Contrast which were both set at zero -- normally, they are set to 50 and 25, respectively for RAW files (it is very likely that the image was not underexposed, but that the Brightness and Contrast controls are not set to good default starting points). Also, there were very large amounts of Luminance Smoothing (80) and Color Noise Reduction (62) applied to the image, both of which tend to blur out fine image details. Generally speaking, it is better to leave Luminance Smoothing at zero and apply only enough Color Noise Reduction to remove color artifacts seen in darker ares when viewing the image at 400% -- this amount is typically less than 20. A large amount of Sharpening was applied, but without also using Detail and Masking, the sharpening tool will not be nearly as effective as it could be.

[jrm27]

I thought so! I said to myself... 'Self, that looks like that huge house with a tennis court up in edwards... in fact, I bet one could take that pic from the bridge down in the riverwalk area."

Nice to see another "local" here. Gotta love athe good snow over the past couple of days!

[kenny44]

i wasn't liking the shot until the river and than BAM! - started loving it!

agree with the others - lose the house.

if you are able to re-shoot the scene, I would love to see a shot from a lower POV, closer to the water/snow.