Snow Trees at Dusk

[mshockley]

Hello everyone, I could use a little help with this shot. I played around quite a bit in processing to come up with this, and really am not sure if it's any good or not. I do like how it looks, but landscapes are new for me. I was starting to lose light, it was snowing and quite cold. Everything looked very contrasty and felt "cold" in reality, and I wanted to convey that with this picture. Honestly, I really don't have much clue how to even operate my software , so it's a matter of trial and error as I learn! Any advise is appreciated.


EXIF
Canon T1i
ISO 100
f/20 at 1 second
85mm
+1/3 EV

[SwissJon]

I love this.. What filter/Software did you use?

That's a really well composed photo in my opinion.. Do you fancy posting the preprocessed photo so we can see the before and after?

I like. I've really struggled to find something to critique, and the only thing I can think is that perhaps you took the post processing a bit far, this now looks like a sketch not a photo, but hey.. I like it as it is.

Well done.

[mshockley]

Thanks Swiss, and I agree it looks like a sketch! But with that said, it was kind of my own fault. I am using Photoshop Elements 9, which as I mentioned am almost clueless except to just keep trying new stuff with it. What I did was use an artistic filter called Halftone Pattern, I did use some Levels adjustments prior to doing that, and also an adjustment layer to de-saturate all colors. After all that messing around I don't know if the original file looks that different, aside from the hue. I'm hoping someone comes along that can help me figure out what to do with it
Here's the original


It needs a better trained eye than mine! I want to make it right because I think it's a neat shot.

[benchdog]

This is a great shot, well composed I love it.

Did you shoot this in RAW or JPEG?

Your exposure looks good. I would suggest forgetting the filter called Halftone Pattern. Use a levels adjustment to whiten the snow a little and add a slight blur and see what you think.

[mshockley]

I'll give that a try benchdog, thank-you.

[SwissJon]

Personally, I wouldn't do much to that.. I think you've got an almost perfect shot in your camera.. That's a really rare example of a damned good photograph..

I'd desaturate so you lose the blue hue, or perhaps change the colour tempreature, adjust the brightness or exposure to get the whites white (Or just was it in Daz) and then leave it. over processing will only detract from that.

You've got a brilliant photo, in my opinion something worthy of entering a competition, check the competitions section of this site, there's one for high contrast photos, and I think yours beats my entry!! :P

http://digital-photography-school.co...mpetition.html

[mshockley]

Okay guys, here's another copy, it is just the original file, a hue/saturation layer to get the snow whiter. I think maybe I'll just leave it be now? What do you think? Thanks SwissJon for the compliment by the way! Probably won't enter a contest, a little shy about that. I just enter stuff here each week in the assignments and try to not look like a fool compared to some of the beautiful images I've seen here!

[SwissJon]

Perfect.. Don't touch it.

[mshockley]

Yes Sir! Thanks for your help!

[Michael_2010]

My eye is drawn to the first version. Very nice!