About the Image(s)

I recently took a walk on a cold, gloomy day and came across this abandoned ball resting in the opening of a water drainage sewer. It seemed to fit the mood of the day; dreary and kind of sad. So that's what I was trying to evoke in this image. Shot handheld with settings of ISO 200, 70mm, f6.3, 1/200 sec.

I did two versions - a black and white that I posted as final, and a color that is Original 2.

Final was edited as follows:

In Lightroom:
- cropped
- converted to black and white
- increased texture and clarity
- used masks on the dead grasses and parts of the cement and reduced highlights

In Luminar Neo used a filter that opened up the shadows and added more texture and sharpness. Then took it back into Lightroom to add a dark vignette.

Original two was a color version. I did the same Lightroom edits (except b & w conversion), but then took it into Topaz Studio 2. There I added a painterly look called Expressionism which I customized to my liking. That included using masks to reduce the effect in certain areas, and editing the Smudge filter that was part of the Expressionism "look". I also added a dark vignette.

Again, I was trying to bring out the gloomy feel of the scene as I saw it without going overboard in the processing. I'm torn between the black and white and color versions. Your feedback will be appreciated.