Let me know what you think

2 pictures I took yesterday after an appointment at a clients house.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/jdocphoto/70887​75441/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/jdocphoto/70927​43341/

I like the scene/location...you just need to work the scene better to get "the perfect shot".

To my eyes, these shots look over exposed. When I see moss covered rock like that, I picture an area that's almost always in heavy shade. By darkening these shots, it will also make the areas where the sunlight is striking more evident.

Here's a quick example of what I mean.

I think the first shot is definitely the winner, and I like navydoc's edit of it. very pretty shot

I appreciate the feed back. Navydoc, I see what you are saying. What tool did you use to accomplish what you did? I will play with the shot a bit. I got lazy and only used ACR on the first one. Looking at the second shot again I missed focus pretty bad.

Sorry for not responding sooner but I just noticed your question. I use Photoshop CS5 for editing and have it set up to open jpg and tiff files in ACR first. That's where I reduced exposure by about a full stop. I don't recall if I adjusted white balance but if so, I prefer to do that within ACR too. Back in Photoshop, I adjusted contrast and vibrance. Two things I also did was to use a gradient map to equalize the overall brightness and to use a saturation adjustment layer in luminosity blend mode to push the yellow of the moss to a more green shade.

I tend to do a lot of "a little of this" and "a little of that" rather than having a set method.

navydoc wrote in post #14297426
Sorry for not responding sooner but I just noticed your question. I use Photoshop CS5 for editing and have it set up to open jpg and tiff files in ACR first. That's where I reduced exposure by about a full stop. I don't recall if I adjusted white balance but if so, I prefer to do that within ACR too. Back in Photoshop, I adjusted contrast and vibrance. Two things I also did was to use a gradient map to equalize the overall brightness and to use a saturation adjustment layer in luminosity blend mode to push the yellow of the moss to a more green shade.

I tend to do a lot of "a little of this" and "a little of that" rather than having a set method.

What is the advantage of ACR adjustments vs Photoshop CS5?

With white balance adjustments in particular, I just find using the 'temperature/tint' sliders along with the eyedropper tool in ACR to be more intuitive and easier than using a levels or curves adjustment in Photoshop. Adjusting exposure values as well as white balance is helpful to me especially when dealing with skin tones. I will also use the vibrance adjustment in ACR to reduce any over saturation caused by the other adjustments. If you open the file back in CS5 as a smart object, you can always double click to reopen back in the ACR editor to fine tune if need be.

Thanks for the tips I really appreciate it. I am a Photoshop noob, that damn program makes my head spin ha ha.

i really love the 1st one as well... and i have to say i love what navy doc has done with it.

I think the original of the first shot is better than the edit (too dark). The edit is going in the right directions, but I think it was taken a bit too far. It may not be true, but it seems a bit tilted to the left.