A walk around the lake

Another option for #4 would be to completely remove the post on the right, which is out of focus anyway, and have the rails coming directly from the right side. A square crop would add a bit back on the left and create a bit of mystery over what was in the far distance.

Thank you Carol. Please, feel free to edit, I don't mind.

Hi Geoff,

You mean like this.....

http://i58.tinypic.com/28rmp3o.jpg

I like the most recent crop of the fence best. However, there is a distracting green thingy in the top left area of the image that is not present in the very first version.

I like #3 the best. The original, uncropped version!

Mike, your right there is a green thingy there. I will get rid of that bit and maybe the 2 green sticks near the bottom left that are creeping in.

John, thank you.

Yes that is what I was thinking about; but it will come down to which of the options do you prefer.

For the fence I like this edit with the green thingy removed :)


http://i59.tinypic.com/20zvgaw.jpg

I've been following this discussion with interest and find it quite interesting to hear different members preferences. Personally I like the first square crop of the lake and really like that sky and the scene in general.
No one has mentioned this but what stands out for me in the fence image and more so in the leaf is the graininess in them. I don't know what could be done about the leaf but the fence image would probably look a bit better to my eye in any eventual crop if the original had a small luminosity adjustment to soften that graininess a bit before going on with the edits. But that's only my opinion.

Also I've taken the liberty of doing some adjustments to image #2. Maybe you'll like it, maybe not, but it's my take on a scene I quite like but didn't see for real so my adaptation might be very left field.

http://i61.tinypic.com/2ngya6w.jpg

I opened the image in PS Elements 13, created a new layer via copy, set the blend mode to Multiply and adjusted the opacity down a bit. Then I made a layer mask and painted out the areas that were too dark (like the frame, the building roof & reflection etc) then created a hue/saturation layer and increased the saturation by about +8.
I then flattened the layers, made another new blank layer with overlay as the blend mode and filled this layer with neutral grey. Elements and PhotoShop treat neutral/mid grey as transparent when overlay is the blend mode so the layer is invisible. However if you paint on the layer with a brush set to Overlay mode you can lighten or darken the areas painted over. Selecting white as the foreground colour lightens (dodges) and black darkens (burns). With an opacity of 25% I painted the framing trees with a white overlay brush to lighten them a little more then flattened the image and saved it.

As per the comments on all your other images some will like this and some will not:)

Grahame, I really like the lift you have given to this image. I must admit that when I read your explanation that what you have done here is somewhat above my pp skills at this point. You can be sure that I am going to work through your explanation step by step to see how it works though :)

You mentioned a luminosity adjustment, I know there is a luminosity blend mode but I don't know of the adjustment. Is the luminosity blend mode and adjustment the same thing? (it's ok you can laugh yourself silly if this sounds odd) I am using/learning photoshop cc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rita

Grahame, I really like the lift you have given to this image. I must admit that when I read your explanation that what you have done here is somewhat above my pp skills at this point. You can be sure that I am going to work through your explanation step by step to see how it works though :)

You mentioned a luminosity adjustment, I know there is a luminosity blend mode but I don't know of the adjustment. Is the luminosity blend mode and adjustment the same thing? (it's ok you can laugh yourself silly if this sounds odd) I am using/learning photoshop cc.

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Hi again Rita. PS Elements doesn't have Luminosity blend mode.

The Luminosity I'm referring to is done in Camera Raw which is accessed as per this image. At least it is if Photoshop's raw editor is much the same as Element's.

http://i62.tinypic.com/sq0593.jpg


As noted don't go above about 50% or the image becomes too soft. You may not even have to go as high as 50% in fact. Luminosity smooths out the grey scale component of images and it's the grey scale component that causes the coarseness.

Color or chroma noise is seen as tiny spots (not much more than pixel sized) dots of colour and is most obvious in high iso dark images. It can be adjusted out with the Color slider.

Hope this helps :)

Grahame, thank you so much. This helps greatly.

No problem Rita and by the way the adjustment works much better on a raw image than this jpeg which has already lost a lot of information when it was compressed to make it a jpeg.

http://i62.tinypic.com/eswbc4.jpg


http://i57.tinypic.com/1499g8k.jpg


http://i60.tinypic.com/2lm46ps.jpg


http://i61.tinypic.com/317cunn.jpg


Merry Christmas - Cheers!
Philip