Wolf Creek Falls - Advise Needed!!

grimace

Last Sunday I went to Banning State Park just south of Duluth, MN. I was hoping to capture some fall colors and arrived a week too late. Due to some recent rains the falls were running well so I focused on Wolf Creek Falls.

I'm not sure what it is but something doesn't seem right and I can't put my finger on it. The framing or cropping? The lack of color in the background? Shooting at the top of the falls instead of the bottom? Any opinions, ideas, and or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

-Adam

www.adamstravelphotography.com

Allen

Don't fret, the colors are there. Try boosting the saturation and playing with contrast. I played
with the first one and the colors realy pop out, esp. the blue in the water.
Al

Safari

grimace wrote:

something doesn't seem right and I can't put my finger on it.

My guess: low light, underexposed, colour balance. But I agree with Allen - not as bad as it looks or sounds; focus is sharp, lots of detail, colours are present though subdued - these pics can be brightened and turn out very nice. I would try levels, colour balance, then saturation and contrast as Allen suggested. If you had the RAW files I bet the adjustments would be a snap.

ginger_55

So sad, last week I thought it was still summer.

First day I have had long pants, jeans, on.

Nice group of photos. I agree with the other two people. Keep pulling the colors out. Various ways to do that......

ginger

Allen

Adam, there is plenty to work with in your photos. Hope you don't mine, I played with the first
one. Here's a quick example of what can be done by boosting saturation, levels and
contrast in the first one. Maybe overdone alittle.

grimace

Thanks Allen!!
WOW!!

Allen, how did you do that? Are you using PS? I've got to breakdown and pick something up to assist me with my shots but I don't know which software to go with.

Thanks for the tips and thanks for showing me what can be done with these shots!!

-Adam

david_h

Hi Adam,
I'm planning on squelching through the mud to capture a waterfall myself later today. I also couldn't resist playing with yours a little.



In this case, I used the basic LAB recipie from the new Dan Margulis book.
I'm not sure if I've made the water too gree looking (only you can answer that one!), I really like the way that this technique removes haze from the image and makes the woods less flat.

Here's another - I adjusted the recipie somewhat to try to bring out the reds a bit.....



If I get the chance, I'll post some of my own feeble efforts later today.

You mentioned you are looking to invest in image software. To be honest, if you have the money, Photoshop is really the only way to go. I put off buying it for quite a while and used Paint Shop Pro. This has many of the same features and is about a third of the price.

If you want to be as good as you can, you'll end up with Photoshop anyway. A huge advantage is that most of the tips and techniques on this and many other photo sites, are based around PS.

GraphyFotoz

David!
"I used the basic LAB recipie from the new Dan Margulis book"

Can you share that with us who don't have the book?
Looks GREAT!!!

david_h

GraphyFotoz wrote:

"I used the basic LAB recipie from the new Dan Margulis book"

Can you share that with us who don't have the book?
Looks GREAT!!!

There is a lot of discussion on this over in the Digital Darkroom forum. Good thread to start with is this one:

Lab Colour Ch. 1

Some of the folks here such as Rutt and DavidTO have put a lot of effort into making these concepts easy to understand.