woodyspedden

Woody,

Thanks for sharing the shot.

That is, of course, a matter of personal taste but, honestly, I find the HDR over the top. I also think the composition might have worked better if it had included a bit more sky and less of the foreground grass.

Just my 2c.

Cheers.

Georg

Yep, HDR is a polarizing technique for sure. Few are neutral about it.

Personally it isn't my cup of tea.

Woody, could you post the original? It'd be interesting to see it as shot.

Thanks for posting here ... we need more S2 stuff!

-Marc

Woody,

I like the composition, but I 'm also not a huge fan of HDR. The B&W HDR treatment is interesting, but I find the white/bright foreground a little distracting. I took your file into PS and darkened just the foreground with a gradient mask. With that small tweak, the rest of image works much better.

David

One interesting technique to experiment with is to layer the B&W HDR version over the original color file and play with the opacity of that HDR layer in the Layer pallet.

I've done a few of these using the Nik Silver Efex "High Structure" or "Wet Rocks" preset ... then lowering the layer opacity while slightly boosting the saturation of the base color file.

Another way is to do the above, then select the base color layer and convert it to B&W using the Gradient Map B&W selection under the HDR layer for an interesting B&W effect.

Marc

The B & W gives the photo more personality...as if time has stopped and the date of the photo is unknown. I enjoy that in a composition.

I find it hard on my eyes. How about a straight black and white version.