Perfect Prairie

[purified]

A little place I pass by countless times by the road, and I never noticed how perfect it is until now, so I made a special trip just to get the shots. :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v625/purified/treeswingx.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v625/purified/willowtree.jpg

[ian408]

Nice rich, green color. Exposure on the grass and trees look good. The
solitary tire swing reminds me of a place I'd like to sit and contemplate
the world.

I'd like to see the horizon a bit lower. I'd also like to have some color in the
sky.

The subject matter is nice and the place looks as if it has a few more stories
to tell. Look forward to seeing more.

Ian

[Prezwoodz]

Go back for a sunset to! A sunset through that tire would be awesome!


Great Shots!

[purified]

I definitely should! Good idea!

I was disappointed the sky turned out white when I added some contrast. Because of the time of day, the sky was very light. If I take it in the morning it should turn out better. Or when the sun sets. :)

[bfjr]

Nice rich color (green :D) Really grab me when looked :wow

#1 like just the way it is :thumb

#2 would maybe consider crop the lower brown grass

And yes I'd hang there for quite awhile, but you'd need to throw me a bird or two or three :rofl

[ian408]

I definitely should! Good idea!

I was disappointed the sky turned out white when I added some contrast. Because of the time of day, the sky was very light. If I take it in the morning it should turn out better. Or when the sun sets. :)
You could also try this thread. John has posted some
very good photoshop tutorials recently.

Ian

[USAIR]

Wow really jumps out at you and says "look at me"
Very nice :clap :clap :clap

Thanks
Fred

[fourseasons]

A little place I pass by countless times by the road, and I never noticed how perfect it is until now, so I made a special trip just to get the shots. :)

Both are great, especially the first one.
I bet they will look great in IR shots too

[GREAPER]

I like them both just as you shot them Kelly, very nice. Enter the one with the tire swing for KPOTD, give it a nostalgic (sp?) title, days gone by kinda thing.

I like it.

[SusanB]

A little place I pass by countless times by the road, and I never noticed how perfect it is until now, so I made a special trip just to get the shots. :)


Kelly

Great style :thumb Love the simplicity. Usually I find such bright green of the grass a bit too bright but the color here is really wonderful. :clap :clap :clap

Susan

[rutt]

Looks like some sharpening artifacts are visible, but it's hard to tell with your low res posts. Did you sharpen these? Was in camera sharpening tirmed on?

Sharpening images with tree branches takes a light touch. Look at the two sharpening tutorials I've written and posted in the Photoshop forum.

As to restoring the sky. It can be really challenging if there is no detail at all there, even in the raw. One approach is to duplicate, use RGB or LAB curves to give the bottom layer a blue cast in the sky, then do a "Darken" or "Normal" advanced blend. Play with the blend if sliders so that the blue is only blended into the blown sky. Separate the "highlight" slider by doing "option-click" on it and the move the two halves to define a range for the blend (it won't be so suudden.) Play with the opacity of the blend. Alternatively, the "blue" layer" could just be a properly exposed picture of the sky. I used this technique to add some sky where it was completely blown in this shot:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/19414801-L.jpg

[Angelo]

These are fantastic shots Kelly, especially #1; it looks like a painting. Brava :clap

[Tim Kirkwood]

Kelly,


I love #1:clap :clap :clap Very good job!


Tim

[Allen]

I definitely should! Good idea!
I was disappointed the sky turned out white when I added some contrast. Because of the time of day, the sky was very light. If I take it in the morning it should turn out better. Or when the sun sets. :)

Did a quick adjust of sky in PSP. Hope you don't mind.
http://atsmith.smugmug.com/photos/19851869-M.jpg

http://atsmith.smugmug.com/photos/19852085-M.jpg
.

[bfjr]

Did a quick adjust of sky in PSP. Hope you don't mind.
http://atsmith.smugmug.com/photos/19851869-M.jpg

http://atsmith.smugmug.com/photos/19852085-M.jpg
.
I Like that :thumb

[purified]

Wow! Very nice... how did you get it so clean?

[Davidoff]

That's what I was talking about... congratulations !
Do you have msn messenger?

[Andy]

lovely work, kelly - and look at all the cool suggestions!

:thumb to all of you

[thegreenegg]

Kelly,
Have been looking and been jealous of your pictures for a while now. These are making me turn more green than I already am. ;)
Anyway, I really love the colors and when Allen tells you his secrets to blue skies I think you should play around with the blue color. I really think your first picture is fine the way it is- maybe you can reshoot and prove me wrong, but if you choose to go for blue skies tinker with the sky on the second one- so it compliments the nice foliage on the tree.
Ashley
AKA The Green Egg

[Allen]

Ashley, not much of a secret.
The following was done in PSP9
- Promote background layer.
- Select all
- Selections .. Modify .. Select color range
- Eyedrop sky, watch preview and tweak tolerance to fine tune selection
- Click OK
- Invert selection
- Lasso parts that are not sky to unselect them
.. Hold down control key and anything lassod
.. will be unslected. Don't right click or you'll
.. lose the selections and have to start over.
I used the rectangle selection holding control key down to subtract border.
When only sky remains selected hit delete key.
- Add new raster layer and move it to bottom.
- Pick fill tool.
- On the materials pallet left click to foreground color.
- On the Material Properties box select Gradient tab.
- Hit drop down arrow and select Duotone light blue.
- Click OK
- With the Flood Fill tool left click on pic. Make sure in layer pallet
the new raster layer is highlighted.

One suggestion is use a polorizer filter and the blue sky could be more
dynamic. Of course with gray, overcast skys there's always postopp fun.

Kelly, These were such lovely shots as they were. I loved the deep green
and expanceness/isolation presented in the scene.
Al

[Markjay]

Beautiful images, with rich green pastures.

The first images is a great find with that swing hanging there, I might have tried that one in horizontal format to try and capture that entire beautiful tree composed on the left side of the iamge.

Ofcourse, it's easy for me to say from here :-)
Markjay

[purified]

I actually have a horizontal image of the tree as well... I always try to take at least 20 shots to know I'm safe. I can show you that one if you'd like. :)