[aboekman]

Please let me know what you think. I noticed that some of the snow is a little blown out but snow is supposed to white I guess right?
Thanks so much.

[Dave]

I like the framing of the water with the trees, where I find good foreground in front right leads my eye in to shot , around the top & then my eye falls on the reflection. Works for me

[Les Meehan]

Lovely place that and nice image.

I personally would like to see some work on balancing the tonal values of the image. The top section is too light, and uneven from left to right, and could be darked to balance the dark water foreground.

The two snow patches that have blown-out are distracting me. No, snow should not be completely white, it should be a very very light 'textured' tone just below the white value of 255. For very small bits, as in the background, it can go to pure white (although those BG areas don't look blown-out) but for areas such as at right it would help to have a touch of tone (it would have also prevented the 'posterisation' that has occurred there too).

Just my tuppence worth!

Cheers

[JMitchell]

I like this, and although I agree with Les' comments, he is the biggest nit picker of nit-town, so most of the things he says are worth listening to if you want your image completely perfect, but can dishearten newcomers. (not having a go at you Les Honest )

Great shot

[Summerleft]

I like it,

NitPicker of Nit-town

[Charlotte]

Very nice image, although I agree that it would be nice to see some texture in the main dollops of snow, since that is what immediately draws my eye, only to find a bleached patch. I'd also prefer all of the trees to be reasonably vertical; I find the way they're leaning in different directions a bit unsettling (is this lens distortion, i.e. fixable?). I like the way the patches of snow lead my eye around the pic, and I like the colours + detail.

Overall, very pleasant, well done

[Les Meehan]

Originally Posted by JMitchell

I like this, and although I agree with Les' comments, he is the biggest nit picker of nit-town, so most of the things he says are worth listening to if you want your image completely perfect, but can dishearten newcomers. (not having a go at you Les Honest )

Great shot

Could have sworn this was the Critique section? Although I do appreciate that not everyone wants their images to be the best they can be... Where's me tooth comb?

[Charlotte]

Originally Posted by Les Meehan

Where's me tooth comb?

Stuck in your teeth?

[JMitchell]

Originally Posted by Les Meehan

Could have sworn this was the Critique section? Although I do appreciate that not everyone wants their images to be the best they can be... Where's me tooth comb?

Fair point about it being in critique, although I'm sure everyone wants their pictures to be the best, I just thought that maybe some think you mean they're not good when actually all your doing is telling them how to make it perfect in as much detail as possible. To be fair here you said "nice image" so my comment doesn't really apply

[aboekman]

Thank you all so much for all the input.

Les Meehan, I was certainly not offended by your critique. I know that most if not all photographers are proud and rather sensitive of their work...I'm no exception. But I suppose if people, including myself, want to improve we have to hear constructive criticism from others. So...I went ahead and darkened the background. I also patched in some snow over the blown out parts in the FG. It was my first foray into such shenanigans so let me know if it was worth the trouble.

Charlotte, I too noticed that the trees were sort of leaning all over. Most of that was natural but some was due to distortion. I was aiming the camera down with a wide-angle lens to emphasize the large foreground tree. As a result, the upright trees tend to 'fall out' a bit. I tried fixing it a little but didn't get anything satisfactory so I undid it. Feel free to give it a go if you wish.

-Andrew

[Charlotte]

Andrew, I had a go at straightening the verticals, but I couldn't get a good result either. With a shot like this, i.e. with lots of vertical lines (trees), I would avoid aiming downward (or upward for that matter) with a wide-angle lens. Try crouching down instead to see if you can find a suitable viewpoint at which you can keep the verticals straight within the viewfinder. A little late for this otherwise-lovely shot, but perhaps a lesson you've learned the hard way, which are often the lessons that stick

Having said all that, we all of course do it! I think the problem with this particular shot is that the vertical lines do not run all the way down, but are broken by the surface of the water, so that the verticals above the water line are doing in one direction, whilst the "continuation" verticals which run below the water surface are going at a different angle, making it extremely tricky, if not impossible, to correct in post-processing. If the shot were simply of trees (no water reflections) it would be a lot easier to straighten the verticals.

TBH I can't notice any difference with the snow.

[Les Meehan]

Andrew (and Jack)

I thought my comments were very constructive and delivered in a very respectful way? I did say I thought it was a nice image, which it is.

The slanting trees issue doesn't bother me in the slightest since I actually think it lends quite a bit of dynamism to what could otherwise be a very static composition. One of the unique aspects of photography is the fact that we use optics and those optics add their own characteristics to our images, i.e. wide-angle distortion which we should learn to appreciate and exploit in our images. Having the ability in Photoshop to 'correct' things doesn't mean we should! The important question is "what is the image doing?" In this case, my view is that the slanting trees, however caused, add something to the image not detract from it.

Those snow areas, which Charlotte rightly says don't look too different in the revised version, can be made better with a little 'trick' for burnt-out bits. Snow usually shows very fine 'texture' and this can be simulated using the Noise or Film Grain filters (instead of cloning bits into the white). By making a feathered selection of the white areas and adding a very very slight amount of film grain or noise to the area will give the 'impression' of real texture (you may need to blur the noise very very slightly to match it with the image better since digital images don't have obvious 'film grain').
This is a useful technique for many occasions.

Andrew, this next bit is NOT aimed at you since you have made it clear you want to progress...

One thing I would like, the general banter aside which I enjoy, is for my 'friends' to stop bashing me when I am only trying to help people. If my 'standards' threaten some people (which I often find does occur with people that do photography), then that is not my problem but theirs. There are many people, like myself, that actually admire the skill of others and feel it useful to learn from others greater knowledge to advance their own. Striving for the highest standards one can achieve should be seen by others as admirable not as something to be slagged off (like the gutter press do all the time). Right, got that off my chest!

Andrew, this second version is much better tonally and is a very good image.

Cheers