Scenes of Vermont Forums

Three more for you consideration, I'm having a hard time deciding which one I like most, if you would mind rating them, and then again maybe you won"t like any of them !

There is life on this forum! I stop by every once in a while to see if there is anything new and usually there is nothing. Nice to see you here again Janice.

My ranking is the same order that you posted them. I like the first, (1030617) best. Here's why: Foreground. That photo is much more three-dimensional than the others. You've got the foreground grass, the middle ground trees and the clouds in the background. I do think it is underexposed though. I'd open it in Lightroom and increase the exposure of the foreground while leaving the sky alone.

I don't particularly like the last one because I think the clouds should be placed in a more prominent position since they are the subject of the photo. I'd also like to see more foreground. Like number 2, you have two dimensions here, the trees in the foreground and the clouds in the background.

Interesting to get others opinions. I sent these to my sister, who is quite an artist, and she liked the last one best, wanting the fore ground all dark, as she really likes silhouettes, and shadow box theatre, and the old Lotte Reinger silhoutte cartoons. But like you, I lightened the shadows more in the first, because I like to see more dimension. Thanks again!

Like Al, I like the first one best -- for pretty much the same reasons. I also agree that it would be good to bring up the shadows in the foreground trees and the mountains. By exposing for these parts of the image, you have a better chance of preserving details in both the dark and light areas. This is an image that would really benefit from some "working" as a part of post production in Lightroom or Photoshop.

A couple years back, I "invested" in some "add-on" software for my post-production work in Photoshop. This add-on software works almost equally well with Adobe Lightroom. If I wasn't so "invested" in Photoshop, I probably would work exclusively in Lightroom these days. It was developed for photographers and is a wonderful, full-featured program, including a great cataloging program, for post-production for photographers - and substantially less expensive than Photoshop.

My add-on "suite" of software was originally offered by a company called NIK software. A year or so back, Google bought them and in spite of our greatest concerns, have left it more or less intact, and have made it easier and less costly to acquire. I HIGHLY recommend acquiring it and installing it as a add-on to your Lightroom, Photoshop or both. If you can do the whole suite, do. If you can only do one, do Viveza2. Our good friend, Carol (Abby) turned me on to this software and after some initial stand-offishness, I tried it and have never looked back!

I spent countless hours and many years trying to perfect Photoshop techniques - especially selection and layering. Good post production often requires selection of specific areas of an image and adjustments only in that area. Before the NIK software, this was painstaking and time consuming and most people just didn't do it. The NIK suite of software takes all the work out of it. You can open an image in Viveza2 for example and set a selection point and use a slider to make it larger or smaller, and then apply effects to light or darken the image, to selectively adjust the color and saturation and contrast, and even to use an effect that is similar to sharpening, selectively. It is fast and easy and the results are remarkable. It is well worth the cost, if you are serious about getting the most out of your images.

Of course, raw images work best in this program. And especially raw images that have been properly adjusted in the raw converter that is embedded in both Photoshop and Lightroom.

I would bring your image into Viveza2 and work the sky to bring out details and darken, add contrast and perhaps saturate it more. This would take literally minutes in Viveza2

I would show you, but some time back I established a rule here that we should not download and work on another person's image without their permission. If I have your permission, I will demonstrate.

Thanks Andy & Carol! Andy I would love for you to show me what you could do! That would be awesome. I'm all eyes and ears.