This was my 2nd idea for this challenge, and I'm glad I was able to pull it off! Thanks to nheilweil (the guy in this shot) and his buddy Wulf who braved the freezing (literally) temperature to meet me out at Rattlesnake Lake so early in the morning! It's actually a good thing that it was so cold, or this would've been a giant mud pit!
This is the Cedar River Watershed reservoir that supplies 70% of Seattle with water. Pretty surreal place - with all of these enormous cedar stumps sticking up everywhere.
Unfortunately, this shot just loses SO MUCH detail at this size. :o\ It really does look amazing - even at 1024... but 640 pretty much kills it. Hope it still does okay :O)
pp:
did a lot of manual dodge/burn with a high contrast curve, which gives it that surreal/cartoony look. Thought it fitted this pic/challenge.
LR/ACR - convert from raw into 3 different lighting effects
merge in CS3
crop
contrast
dodge/burn in high contrast
levels
curves on the clouds
selective color (trees, water)
minor cloning on the laptop screen
crop
crop
crop some more just to try to get SOME sort of detail in this frame !!!
resize
usm
ni on water & only a small anount on the stump (it already had that smooth look) :O)
sfw
------------------------
Post Challenge:
Wow! Finally got my first Blue!
Thanks to everyone for the votes & comments :O)
Didn't know what to expect with this one! I processed it
on my laptop (where it looks awesome) but viewing it on
other monitors - it looks fairly heavy on the processing.
Thanks again to Nicholas & Wulf for braving the elements - it was obviously worth the trip !!!
I'll post the uncropped version in a while - it's much better.
In the meantime, you'll find me walking around on cloud #9 ;O)
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 115 Avg (all users): 7.5208 Avg (commenters): 8.6875 Avg (participants): 7.0435 Avg (non-participants): 7.7449 Views since voting: 17555 Views during voting: 417 Votes: 144 Comments: 40 Favorites: 19 (view)
I used to live on the cedar river in an area of Renton that was made when they damed it (nearly all of downtown Renton if my memory serves me right). GREAT work in this challenge - that is a wonderful idea and so well executed. Also - well worth the Blue!!!
I thought I had commented during the challenge, I guess I didn't. What a cool scene, I was hoping to see this one ribbon. Congratulations on your first blue ribbon and completing your set!
You deserved the blue. This was my top choice, glad others agreed. Fantastic. The tree trunk is absolutely awesome and really makes your shot.
Congrats
Lovely tones on the wood, it really stands out from the rest of the image but you've pushed it too far IMO in the dodge and burn department. The tonal range of the rest of the image is very flat in comparison. A more subtle approach would have given a more natural approach
Telecommuting
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