What’s Your Preference?

Feachador · #1 (**permalink**) 07-10-2009, 05:10 PM

A few friends and I went to Lake Alatoona Dam on the Chattahoochie River a few weeks ago, and I took a lot of shots, (300 or so, actually) only about 30 or so did I decide were presentable. I was curious what a typical ratio is for everyone.

Here are 4 of my favorites from that trip:

This one is by far my favorite. I dropped down the clarity in Lightroom, and bumped up the vibrancy and saturation. I was going for a dreamy, fae sort of look for the forest. I'm usually overly critical of my own stuff, but I'm really proud of this one.

This is the earthen portion of the dam, right near the parking lot. Again, there was some adjustments in Lightroom.

Walking in the Hooch. The afternoon light on the water really gave me a "summertime" impression.

This one frustrates me. I was watching the duck, and it's a great pose for the duck, but the woman in the background is really distracting. I considered trying to remove her, but I'm not nearly good enough at retouching to attempt it.

I'll post a link later to the smugmug gallery, right now they're kind of jumbled up with some other random pics I took that weekend (here, for the time being.)

leonaashlee · #2 (**permalink**) 07-10-2009, 05:38 PM

I really love your first shot. I have a particular love of trees and this one looks so soft.
Like the others too. Very nice...I see what you're saying about the last one, but I wouldn't know what to do with it except get a lot closer.

Feachador · #3 (**permalink**) 07-10-2009, 05:44 PM

Yeah, I tried cropping it, but was wasn't very happy with any of the crops. I guess I should've just waited a second for her to pass, but I was so focused on the duck, I didn't realize she was there!

dakwegmo · #4 (**permalink**) 07-10-2009, 06:09 PM

I love the third one, it just screams summer to me.

I think you're right about the last one. The bird's pose is classic, but the background is too distracting. Maybe more than could easily be fixed in PhotoShop.

weezerisrock · #5 (**permalink**) 07-10-2009, 06:24 PM

Great shots, the third is my favorite but that first one is so awesome too! bah! screw it! Favorites now come in pairs!

daisymay7 · #6 (**permalink**) 07-10-2009, 09:04 PM

I like your duck photo. I hope you don't mind, but I was wondering (concerning your comments on the distracting background) if it was possible to fix. So I saved a copy of your picture and played around with it in GIMP. I am not very good. This was the best that I could do. Here is what I did.

I am new to this site and this is my first time commenting/posting, so if I have done something wrong, please let me know. I would like to know what you think.

dakwegmo · #7 (**permalink**) 07-10-2009, 10:08 PM

@daisymay7, I still find the headless goose in the background of that crop distracting. I think you'd need to clone it out to in order to get a really good image out of it.

nemesis256 · #8 (**permalink**) 07-11-2009, 12:07 AM

I love the first one. Could you post the original version? I'm interested in seeing how it looked before you modified it.

Feachador · #9 (**permalink**) 07-11-2009, 02:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nemesis256

I love the first one. Could you post the original version? I'm interested in seeing how it looked before you modified it.

Sure thing! Here's the "straight out of the camera" shot:

And links to the larger sizes of the final (here) and original (here)

@ daisymay7, I think you're on the right track, but I wonder if not cropping it out and trying to remove the girl, as well as the truck from the background might be a good idea. If I get adventurous later, I might try doing that in photoshop.