Cotswold Autumn Hillside

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A shot from last week...

[Justinr]

A shot from last week...

You have certainly caught the mood there although the greens look as if a little cleaning up might benefit. I'm guessing that's down towards Stroud rather than the northern end of the hills?

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Yep, looking off the side of Rodborough Common towards Woodchester and the Nailsworth valley.

Not quite sure what you mean with "cleaning up" the greens? you mean potentially looking to play up saturation of them a bit and a cooler colour temp in those areas?

I went to and fro on this a bit when editing the image, to me keeping the greens more subdued seemed to work better giving the picture a bit more of a unified feel with more emphasis on the curve of yellows/golds of the trees.

[Justinr]

Yep, looking off the side of Rodborough Common towards Woodchester and the Nailsworth valley.

Not quite sure what you mean with "cleaning up" the greens? you mean potentially looking to play up saturation of them a bit and a cooler colour temp in those areas?

I went to and fro on this a bit when editing the image, to me keeping the greens more subdued seemed to work better giving the picture a bit more of a unified feel with more emphasis on the curve of yellows/golds of the trees.

I've taken the liberty of cleaning up the colour channels via selective colour (image>adjustments>Selective colour, in PS2).

Select the red channel and reduce the black and cyan by the sliders. Then select the yellow channel and  reduce the cyan, magenta and black and so on. How much you reduce them by is purely subjective and will depend to a great extent on the camera on which the shot was taken, start with 10 - 15% . I never touch the grey channel though, you'll see why. ;-)

Basically what you need to do is reduce the colours that should not be in the channel. Red is made up of yellow and magenta so take out some of the cyan and black, yellow is a primary colour so take out some of the rest. Best thing to do is try it for yourself and work out what suits you. I'm sure the techie lads will have a better explanation of what is actually going on, but it works for me.

[brandtb]

The landscape subject(s) are really wonderful...especially the curve and the intense highlighted row of trees along the curve...all in all can make for a nice image. There are some problems in that the harsh sky has intense highlights (some blown out) and it takes the focus away from the curve element.  I would also look at bring up the shadows/blacks in the inner area of the curve and also the hue of the yellows is a bit green...easily taken care of in LR with hue slider. I'll pm you some additional. /B

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Opposite opinions on the greens I see. 

For the hillside I was aiming for a middle ground, it is naturally somewhat brown/yellow at this time of year as its unimproved grassland which I feel gives a certain unity to the picture BUT I didn't want to entirely remove the green from it to provide a bit more realism and some differentiation between it and the trees on the hillside. Personally I think Justins edit adds a bit too much green to the hillside although the green trees might be better with a bit of orange taken out of them, I'll give that a try.

Personally for me the sky is a choice between either cutting off the top half of it to keep the focus entirely on the land or keeping it and allowing it to hold its own with the land by being striking. I don't think equalising the brightness a lot more(I'v done a bit of it although Justins edit turns up the contrast again) would look natural anyway as the sunbeams are a dead giveaway of its position and so how bright the upper centre should be.

[sarrasani]

good tourning plat of the grass, well coupled with light and clouds.
I like it.
S.