Wooded Valley

[RecurrentNerve]

Howdy.

What do you guys think of this shot? I like the top half but I think the foreground lacks contrast, or is that just me?



ISO 200, f/11, 1/400

[wanderella]

i think it looks pretty cool....very ansel adams of you.....

[windrider86]

Its too grey for me. Try using an adjustment layer. Levels or curves to brighten up the dark areas in the trees

[RecurrentNerve]

This is already adjusted quite a bit - it was colour to start with.

The problem I'm having is that there seems to be very little room for adjusting the foreground without it looking artificially light. The dark areas are very dark and the light areas very light. I might try just selecting the trees but they are a pain to get right. Back to the drawing board.

[danbaileyphoto]

Actually, you could decrease the blacks and reduce contrast in Photoshop, and that would help the overall tonal range of the image. I don't think that you're too far off here, in fact I think that you've got a nice shot with a very large dynamic range, none of which is too far out. Just do a little tonal tweaking and see what happens.

[RecurrentNerve]

A bit of further tweaking... any better?

[danbaileyphoto]

Getting better, you have good definition in the trees now. Is there a way to bring that up without losing the sky just above the horizon?

[RecurrentNerve]

Yes, a bit of masking should sort that out. I thought that myself once I'd posted.

[RecurrentNerve]

Sky restored: