From the Smokies

[Admesser]

Any suggestions? Is it too dark? I still haven't mastered the RAW workflow yet, my pictures seem to always be dark and not as bright and colorful as I'd like sometimes. I did some Photoshop tweaks (burned the clouds to make them more pronounced).
Anyway, what do you all think?? Larger version is available on my Flickr page.

[ELAY]

I am not sure I can help you with your RAW issues generally, but I think this shot works well as dark as it is.

It may not have been what you were going for originally, but the darkness of the foreground trees really offsets the shapes and sombre cool tones of the hills in the background -- it looks almost like a woodblock print.

Texture and more vivid green colours in those trees would have detracted from the mood you are setting here.

EL

[Admesser]

Yeah, I wanted to get a really good shot of the surrounding areas, but it was so hazy. I just took a couple of quick shots, I didn't really mess with the metering or anything like I usually do. I like the picture, but it's not what I wanted to get.

[pcarfan]

Yeah! brightening things here definitely spoiled it (even if the halos are ignored, which can be fixed, but the whole ambiance is spoiled). Check it out.....



So, your image looks great as is...it has to be appreciated in it's full scale....

[windrider86]

I dunno I like it the way it is. The one and only thing I might do is add a touch of color to the sky

[ELAY]

The one and only thing I might do is add a touch of color to the sky

I was sort of thinking that after I saw pcarfan's abandoned edit -- how about something simple like just adjusting the white balance slider a bit to the left, into the blues?

EL