Connie Reinhart  


Stony Ridge by Connie Reinhart

May 2022 - Stony Ridge

May 2022 - Connie Reinhart

Original

About the Image(s)

Our Camera Club has an annual competition with another club. It is a scavenger hunt with 7 subjects to find. One is a B&W landscape. Running through our town is a glacial moraine that is referred to as “Stony Ridge”. The ridge is several miles long, and the rock formations are amazing. This one with the blue sky, green leaves, and brown rocks is best left as a color image. Applied Topaz AI Clear to just the rock at the bottom; depth of field was too shallow to get good focus there. Then used Topaz Precision Contrast to adjust the contrast. HSL Color Tuning was used mostly for the blues and greens, but it enriched the color of the rocks also. Used NIK Graduated Neutral Density filter to darken the rocks at the bottom in order to emphasize the tree. Then, because my monitor is very bright, I added a brightness/contrast adjustment layer with brightness at +30%.


This round’s discussion is now closed!
8 comments posted




Linda M Medine   Linda M Medine
Hi Connie, This is a beautiful image. I would not change too much on this image. Good sharp image and great contrast and great texture. I did crop at the bottom where the image was a little soft. The rocks in the middle of the image at the bottom makes a good leading line to the subject, the tree. On the left side there was some yellow grass and I cloned that out. The are a few rocks in the foreground that has hi lights on them, I darkened them a little. I have a visual feedback.   Posted: 05/10/2022 18:50:22
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Connie Reinhart   Connie Reinhart
Good edits. Thanks, Linda.   Posted: 05/18/2022 11:02:43



Michael Moore   Michael Moore
This is a nice composition with strong leading lines to draw us into your scene which is beautiful. I think your processing has brought a lot of life to the image but that maybe the sky is a little over baked. I would experiment with reducing the saturation or shifting the hue to see if that might result in a more natural look.   Posted: 05/11/2022 11:40:58
Connie Reinhart   Connie Reinhart
Good advice. It does look a little over done to me too.   Posted: 05/18/2022 11:03:37



 
Looks like a lovely area to wander and find photos. I like the way you've processed the tree and the rocks. In my opinion, I feel that there's too much stuff in the photo. The overlap of the tree bottom with the rocks behind, and all the foreground make my eye spin looking for a place to rest. As you note, the trees the subject, but its base is camouflaged. Perhaps you could try cropping some from the bottom, expanding the canvas with content-aware fill on both sides to give some more breathing space for the tree... A photo taken from ground level looking up might have put this interesting newly-leafed tree more front and center.   Posted: 05/13/2022 17:46:30
Connie Reinhart   Connie Reinhart
Thank you, Witta. This area is about 1 mile from home. It will be easy to go back any time.   Posted: 05/18/2022 11:05:16



Denise McKay   Denise McKay
This was a very nice tree to capture in an interesting area. Great find. I like how some of the smaller rocks add a leading line to the tree. Your post processing also brought out the color of the bark and leaves.

I do feel the foreground is a bit busy and the out of focus boulder at the bottom doesn't add to the image. As an example edit, I did some cloning across the out of focus area and pulled in different parts of the foreground to clean it up a little. I also cropped a bit off the bottom and a little from the right side as well, hoping to bring a bit more focus to the tree. I also slightly desaturated the blue of the sky.

Again, just an example of how you could continue to play with this photo if you wanted to. I also like Witta's suggestion that a little bit of a different angle might be nice. Something to consider for a future outing!   Posted: 05/15/2022 13:09:29
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Connie Reinhart   Connie Reinhart
Thanks, Denise. I would like to go back and experiment with angles and different times of day. At times the moon rises behind this ridge. Haven't gotten a good image of that yet.   Posted: 05/18/2022 11:08:13