Reaching...

[ShaneS]

A gnarly tree in our local botanical garden.



I like the perspective but wonder if the processing is a bit over the top?

[terrib]

I do not think processing is over the top and I agree that the perspective is nice. I like it.

[ShaneS]

Thank you Terri. I struggled a few times to get this right and came back to it today. The image was taken on a cloudy day so the bark looked a bit flat out of the camera. I tweaked the curves and levels a bit but it took some time for me to settle on this version.

[kdoc856]

Nice pic, and you have done well with the bark texture. "Forest" light is tricky because of the foliage generating a slight yellow and green cast. I usually end up nudging down the yellow channel and decreasing green luminance. Might be worth a play here.

[ShaneS]

Thank you for the editing tip Kevin! It makes perfect sense and I will give this a try when I get home from work today.

[ShaneS]

Kevin - I attempted to make the edits that you suggested but came across some challenges as I thought I knew how to do what you suggested but when I openned the image I realized that...

nudging down the yellow channel and decreasing green luminance

was not in my skill set. I use CS5 and couldn't find a yellow channel, only a green one???

So what I did was create a mask from the green channel and shifted the color balance of the yellows towards blue and then used levels to darken the green channel slightly. This is what I came up with:



If you flip back and forth between the two images the color cast that you refer to is very obvious and I really appreciate you taking the time to point it out.

Is this a different way to do what you had in mind can you point me to a resource that might help me add this to my skill set? Should I have gone farther?

Thanks!

[kdoc856]

Shane,
I think you did great. I should have mentioned that I use LR4 for my WB and color shift adjustments- they have simple slider function with multiple colors that can be individually manipulated. I use CS6 for pixel work, layers and curves primarily.

[Bobobird]

Might fine image. I need to try something like this.

[ShaneS]

Kevin thanks again for encouraging me to look at another facet of my images - in the past I have tended to look at white balance as a global issue and set something that is the best overall fit for the image. I now know that I have other options for subtle changes that can have a large impact.

Thank you Bobo...go out an find a tree to model for you and share the results