Black Water Update

Just so you know I haven't been dogging it. . . here's an update on my continuing education.

This is the picture I posted last Monday, when I was trying to salvage something from the pictures I'd taken the previous Friday and the mid-day lighting pretty much had me stumped.

After I reworked the image the differences between the two, while subtle, seem to be a net improvement. (You may not see them if you don't view the larger images.)

I darkened the far bank and the water somewhat. I needed to find a better balance between the shadows and the faint reflection of the bank in the water. I also decided to remove the flotsam in the foreground. That not only made the water look deeper, darker, and more interesting in its own right, the debris on the surface  distracted from the minimal reflections. After staring at this for several minutes, I've about decided I prefer the warmer tones in the rock foreground of image #1 to the more accurate rock color in image #2. I think I know how to go back and burn that warmer color in. We'll see. . . I may revisit this post and add a third version with the warmer rock. The most obvious difference, of course, (I almost used "most glaring", but restrained myself) is the lens flare. I haven't found a comparable tool in PS yet, so I went back to my old program and played with it for awhile, changing parameters 'til I came up with this.

Well, that didn't take long! This version now has the warmer rock in the foreground, but more overall detail in it as well. I also had an inspiration concerning the use of gradient masks, so the background and water are a bit darker still, and the reflections in the water are still visible, if a bit more subtle.