Resilience

[AntonioCorreia]

Resilience
The vegetation stands firm atop this small dune carved by the wind.
The jagged shape of the leaves contrasts with the thorny dryness of the dead stems, creating a tension between life and survival as the low sunset light sculpts the sand’s contours, revealing its texture and the visible labour of erosion.
The sky, clear and deeply blue, wraps the scene in a silence that feels suspended in time.

[C J Southern]

Hello Antonio,

I read your previous reply. I hadn't posted my edit of your image because I was waiting for your permission. Probably what you saw was just your image in the quoted section?

Anyway - with your kind permission - here is the result of what I did in L*A*B colourspace:



Not a huge difference - and I've tried to keep the sky the same (ish) - but I thought this just helps make the "alive" material "pop" a bit more. Also, I think your original may have had a very subtle green colour cast.

[AntonioCorreia]

Colin, thank you very much for your suggestion. Please know that I fully allow my images to be altered and worked on whenever anyone in this forum wishes to do so. In fact, I will add a note in the footer to make this clear for everyone.

In the meantime, I played a little with the LAB mode and the result was surprisingly good. I even found the process quite straightforward. Afterwards, I added a few more adjustments in Lightroom and, interestingly, my preference ended up leaning towards a version very close to the first one, although the image as a whole became brighter and more pleasing.
My LAB version is a bit sad !

[C J Southern]

You're very welcome

I wonder if the optimal result may come from elements of each?

- I liked your original sky, but thought the sand had a green colour cast making the foliage "disappear" a little.

- I like the foliage in my edit the best, but there's too much magenta in the sand

- In both of your revised versions the foliage still looks a bit "lost" (to me anyway).

I really just wanted to see what LAB (I give up on "L*A*B"!) could do to pop the foliage and reduce the colourcast but, maybe, we would need local adjustments to enhance it any further? (I got to the point where global adjustments that enhanced one area had a detrimental effect on other areas). Possibly something as simple as a minor colour temperature change (in the tint axis) - and a HSL adjustment layer targeting only the colours of the foliage would do the trick?

Below is the first image I used LAB on to drive colours apart. Without the enhancement all of the rocks looked the same colour - but with the enhancement there's a subtle variation in colour. I think it's probably true to say the RGB modes are capable of producing the same results, but sometimes I just find LAB easier for me to get results I want.