Ferns, Neversink Mt, Reading, Pa (C&C welcome)

[Rick58]

I shot these ferns just before a thunderstorm broke loose on the mountain. The overcast skies provided a diffused light between the trees.

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[deeky]

Not a fan at all of ferns in my yard, but they do provide nice texture in photos.

The background is a little busy to really make the ferns pop, but it looks like the situation would have made it tough to address in composition.

[Rick58]

Thanks Deeky, I think I might agree. The idea was to preserve the feeling of the forest floor without losing the ferns but a little burning in of the highlighted background noise might be in order.

[cgipson1]

I would just raise the overall exposure.. the ferns look underexposed... muddy looking. (calibrated monitor, btw)

[Rick58]

Ok, here's the exposure increased with the shadows subdued
Attachment 14508

[cgipson1]

Ok, here's the exposure increased with the shadows subdued

Better.. but still not there. How are you converting these... I am seeing a greenish tinge on the black and white!

[Rick58]

It's a RAW digital ran through Photo Pro X3 and then manually manipulated. A breeze was kicking up and exposure was down to 1/25 which I realize sacificed sharpness. If you're interested, I'd be very curious to compare your results

[cgipson1]

Ok.. pulled down the image and ran it through photoshop / Nik silver....

Ferns,-Neversink-Mt.jpg

The lack of DOF and sharpness is the killer here...

You can use flash for shots like these.. get it off camera, and you can do some cool stuff

[Rick58]

I can now see the tint you were talking about but we're now back to Deeky's comment about the busy background which is even more ehanced
I've been going back and forth between your version and my last correction. No doubt the tint had to go, but brightening the ferns to this extent removes the stormy-forest mood I felt while snapping the photo. For me, it's something in between. Thanks for the critique. It was interesting.

[Rick58]

I came back several more times and looked at Charlie's version of this. As I said, once my eye's saw the tint, it was bad and had to go...thanks. Brightening the ferns made them pop but it was a tad too much for my taste. Thanks again. I had to run them through just one more time to subdue the background and just take the edge off the ferns themselves. I started all the way back with the original RAW file and hopefully got the best of both worlds. C&C anyone?

Attachment 14527