Light show c&c

[SquarePeg]

Another shot from after the storm. Thoughts on ways to improve this? Too much with the sparkles? Go b&w? Should I try to remove that out of focus branch of snow in the foreground on the right or at least shorten it to open up the view to the water. Still a newb at cloning and such so that may turn out to be beyond my skill level.

Snow2 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

 

[minicoop1985]

The sparkles look a little on the fake side to me. Not sure if they are or not, but I feel that they're a bit much.

 

[Designer]

I wouldn't try cloning out a branch, it's not easy to make it look perfectly natural, if you know what I mean. Maybe just crop it differently. Times like that I would be tempted to prune the bothersome branch.

 

[SquarePeg]

The sparkles look a little on the fake side to me. Not sure if they are or not, but I feel that they're a bit much.

Some of the sparkles were there, just not as pronounced. I zapped them a bit with a Topaz filter. Here is the shot without that star filter effect:

Snow3 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

 

[RichBrown]

I like the second shot a lot more. It looks more natural.

 

[Peeb]

I like both!

 

[SquarePeg]

I like the second shot a lot more. It looks more natural.

I like both!

Thanks for looking! I think I'm going to give it a redo and aim for somewhere in between.

 

[SquarePeg]

Playing around with this some more. I removed some of that big branch and tried a different vibrance with the sparkles. I think I like this one best although I know the cloning to remove the lower part of that big out of focus branch was not perfect.

Snow4 by SharonCat..., on Flickr