Critique my landscape

Hi all,

I'm not a frequent poster here, but would love contructive critique to help me improve. In particular, I played with this picture a lot more than I usually do, so any comments on the processing would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. cmh

Lovely shot, I'm a newb, so I'm not going to add anything intelligent as far as your picture is concerned. But I would like to know where you shot this from (assuming it is Hood).

Also, I noticed that we have exactly the same equipment!

Color balance seems to be a bit off and it is lacking contrast which would give it more punch...Lovely scene though, and beautiful sky.

Not too bad. It's too soft though. What aperture were you using?

I don't like the stumps out farther in the water...maybe repositioning them would have been better. Hard to say without being there but they break up the flow of the image for me. A bit more contrast - would like to see some more color but that's not always possible.

scrumalf - this is Mt Hood shot from Trillium lake. Nice choice of newb gear! I'm quite new to this myself.

rrblint - thanks for the notes. I did increase the contrast quite a bit in the mountain and sky. It was quite washed out, I believe due to wildfires.

Numeorean - thanks for the comments. I also don't really like the stumps, but I like the rocks, and they were the only foreground rocks available. Next time I'm there I'll see if a move right or left can put the stumps in a better position (or out of the frame). I shot at F20, 2.5 sec, right at twilight.

I'm going to try an edit with more contrast (particularly in the foreground).

Thanks!
cmh

I'll take a stab at this one because I would love to be there and twilight is so wonderful to work with. I like this shot even though you had to deal with the smoke.

Moving to the right may move the stumps to the left and the mountain to the right which might help the composition. Unfortunately it will make the sky on the left brighter possibly drawing attention away from the mountain.

Moving to the left will have the stumps fighting with the dock unless you go far enough left to put the stumps to the right of the dock. The light would be more balanced too. If there are nice rocks there I would try that.

You could also clone out the stumps.

What ISO and focal length did you use? If I shot at twilight at f/20 my shutter speed would be closer to 30 seconds. With a sturdy tripod I use ISO 100 as long as the light allows. Depending on the focal length and the distance to the foreground rocks you may be able to use f/11 or f/16. This would allow you to get closer to the sweet spot for the lens while maintaining focus throughout the frame.

Soft light layer to 60% opacity flattened
high pass overlay at 40% flattened
auto tone
auto contrast

I like your shot!

My take - added vibrance and saturation, levels adjustment, and a curves adjustment, then some cloning/patching/heali​ng

Just saw my horrible cloning of the shoreline, but you get where I was going....

And the people vanished! Amazing!

There is a lot to like about this image and location.

I think the foreground rocks should go and crop for a landscape. Here's my take on it.

Wow - thanks for all the input and different ideas everyone. I'll post this last edit with a contrast boost, and more sharpening. Then I'll move on because as pointed out, the photo is a little soft. I think I like Qbx's edit the best, actually, but all are good.

I can't wait to return to this lake and try a few different perspectives (although this particular spot was pretty hemmed in between bushes on my right, and water on my left). I'm interested in what it would look like a bit higher and to the right so that the entire stump and and flowers are below the water line. Maybe they will balance the mountain well... I actually made a huge beginner's mistake on this shoot in that I drove up to the site I wanted to photograph with one battery that I hadn't fully charged. Since I was there a couple hours before sunset, I was hiking around taking pictures of flowers and what not - all shots that I was pretty sure I would delete as soon as I got home, but I was playing around anyway. Then I got a 'change your battery' message! So, I set up and tried to wait for just the right time and took a handful of photos of roughly this composition before my battery completely conked out. Of course, I have been to this location before with plenty of battery power and a mountain completely socked in with clouds...

Thanks a ton everyone for your help. I'll keep shooting and post some more.

C Scott IV wrote in post #15005711
I'll take a stab at this one because I would love to be there and twilight is so wonderful to work with. I like this shot even though you had to deal with the smoke.

Moving to the right may move the stumps to the left and the mountain to the right which might help the composition. Unfortunately it will make the sky on the left brighter possibly drawing attention away from the mountain.

Moving to the left will have the stumps fighting with the dock unless you go far enough left to put the stumps to the right of the dock. The light would be more balanced too. If there are nice rocks there I would try that.

You could also clone out the stumps.

What ISO and focal length did you use? If I shot at twilight at f/20 my shutter speed would be closer to 30 seconds. With a sturdy tripod I use ISO 100 as long as the light allows. Depending on the focal length and the distance to the foreground rocks you may be able to use f/11 or f/16. This would allow you to get closer to the sweet spot for the lens while maintaining focus throughout the frame.

I looked back at my other photos from this shoot, and this one was a good bit before twilight. I did have one shot at about 30 seconds of exposure, but liked the composition less than this one (although this one is not the greatest comp either...)

Thanks for the suggestions.
cmh

Just for education... here is another shot from just about 3 feet to the right (yes I got muddy feet, although not too bad), and maybe 15 minutes later. This was later, and had a 30 second exposure that helped smooth the water and reflection. I think the reflection, blurred clouds and overall look is more of what I was going for, but with the trees, clouds, dock, stump and foreground rocks so heavy on the right, I felt it was too unbalanced. I also wish I had a bit of space between the rocks and reflection.

Edit: Upon reflection, I like this shot much more than my original post or edits...

That's a better start I think. I'd move a bit closer and capture the reflection of the entire mountain.