A few from Kuang Si Falls, Luang Prabang, Laos

[shadowblade]

A few photos from Kuang Si Falls, part of a tributary that flows into the Mekong near Luang Prabang, Laos.

[Paulo Bizarro]

I prefer #2, I find the composition and light more balanced.

[francois]

It's paradise on earth with those stunning colors. Here, long exposure works well. Photo #2 has a small edge over the first one. It looks more dynamic with the successive falls.

[thierrylegros396]

I prefer #2, I find the composition and light more balanced.

+1, the 2nd is really well framed and processed.

Thierry

[Jeremy Roussak]

Idyllic. I prefer #2: I think what spoils #1 for me is the very bright area on the right-hand side, which is distracting.

Jeremy

[shadowblade]

Idyllic. I prefer #2: I think what spoils #1 for me is the very bright area on the right-hand side, which is distracting.

Jeremy

I actually preferred #1 myself, although I like both of them.

What's wrong with the bright area? Is it that it's too bright (and needs to be darkened in postprocessing), or that it exists at all? It's not blown out and there's plenty of latitude to dial it back. I like the 'light at the end of the tunnel' effect as the river flows into the forest clearing, which also gives a bit of a backlit/glancing light effect to the waterfall (as you would often do with strobes in a non-landscape) in contrast to the filtered light coming through the canopy providing ambient light.

[Bob_B]

I prefer #2 for its composition. On my monitor (which is not truly calibrated), the colors seem to be overly saturated, especially the green hues. Was this done intentionally?

  Bob

[shadowblade]

I prefer #2 for its composition. On my monitor (which is not truly calibrated), the colors seem to be overly saturated, especially the green hues. Was this done intentionally?

  Bob

Looks good in Photoshop, on my phone and in print. Looks oversaturated in web browser or in non-colour-aware apps. I'm using a wide-gamut monitor.

The trouble with most monitors is that they exceed sRGB by a significant margin (although not approaching aRGB) but most software just takes the sRGB numbers (from files intended for web) and expands them to fill whatever gamut the monitor is capable of displaying.

Mind you, as an ex-Velvia shooter, I lean towards highly saturated colours anyway.

Re: the composition - I struggled with finding the right cropping and aspect ratio to work with #1 and am still unsure if I have it right.

[shadowblade]

Fixed the bright area in the first image.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Fixed the bright area in the first image.

I think that's an improvement (although since you've replaced the original, it's not possible to compare them). I seems to me that the bright yellow area just to the right of the falls is still overly bright; I understand your "light at the end of the tunnel" idea but for me it doesn't  quite work. Others may differ: I don't claim to be "right".

Jeremy

[shadowblade]

I think that's an improvement (although since you've replaced the original, it's not possible to compare them). I seems to me that the bright yellow area just to the right of the falls is still overly bright; I understand your "light at the end of the tunnel" idea but for me it doesn't  quite work. Others may differ: I don't claim to be "right".

Jeremy

Any ideas for better cropping? This one was a hard one to crop optimally. In the end, I went for the bright area in the top right at the 1/3 mark, with leading lines all converging there.

[thierrylegros396]

I think that's an improvement (although since you've replaced the original, it's not possible to compare them). I seems to me that the bright yellow area just to the right of the falls is still overly bright; I understand your "light at the end of the tunnel" idea but for me it doesn't  quite work. Others may differ: I don't claim to be "right".

Jeremy

Really better than the first version you post.

Now they are equally good.

Thierry

[Jeremy Roussak]

Any ideas for better cropping? This one was a hard one to crop optimally. In the end, I went for the bright area in the top right at the 1/3 mark, with leading lines all converging there.

Without seeing what you've cropped off already, it's hard to comment, of course. I wouldn't touch the framing on either of them as they stand, though (Russ, are you proud of me?  )

Jeremy