Well I have had a good look and my origonal does appear flat in comparison to all your efforts.

In my opinion there are two pairs with suble differences within each pair. Christine & Stephen - Harry & Adey

Both Christine and Stephens have added a warmth that has lifted the colours - very obvious in the plant on the left side as it has brought colour to it. The left tree trunk appears similar. The touch of saturation in Christines has made a huge difference to the foreground, while appearing more subtle in the fresh foliage. No apparent colour change in the bluebells.

Harry and Adey have very similar tones in the tree trunk as has Gerry despite his greater saturation. Harry and Adeys appear to be very similar in colour even to the plant on the left side by the tree trunk. Top marks to Adey on the foreground. I have just tried this out but lots more practice needed.
I do not know how to reduce saturation to see if before that step there would have been a greater similarity of Gerry's with Harry and Adeys.

Additional with Robs contribution. On my screen Robs appears to be mid point between the 2 pairs in the strength of colour difference.

The real advantage for me was being able to see all versions on the same screen, and how close you all came with the end result.

For info as colour modes seem to have become a bit of a buzz, the camera is set to sRGB.


What have I learnt .......
Be consevative in what you do.
Use of layers
Dodging and burning.
In one day .................................................. ....................... thats loads. Thanks for your efforts.

Don

Cheeky is here again.

Trying to find a non traction engine dead shot that I have not trashed. This is one I did not trash but also have not yet found an answer to.

OK this is a bit more open to what you want to do, crop etc as it is currently full frame.
Classic case of things appearing in the picture that you did not see at the time or intend.

Bit of a snap shot. White a bit blown so probably not a lot that can be done ( stop laughing Stephen !! )

I attatch the image - on its side to give reasonable file size and an upright crop that shows the problem.

The real problem shows up in the crop. The weeds growing up below the water appear like scratches. Is this a bin job or can something be done. The tricky bit as I see it is that the lead swan cannot be blown anymore.

Don

I've cropped it a bit to emphasise the birds and the diagonal of the RH bank cutting out the unnecessary top bit of the river and the bottom with its eye-catching blue reflection (it's also got rid of some of those submerged weeds in the process!)

I also added some saturation to the greens and de-saturated the blues a bit but it doesn't seem to show up much in the final image!

My first effort

1.I duplicated the layer then used clone and healing brush to get rid of grass underwater.
2. An ajustment layer for curves lighten the midtones and hold back highlights + a very small amount of hue/saturation. +2


I tried to burn highlight out but wouldn't do it they are to blown.

Going walk about for a bit
 

A quick thanks for your work so far.

I will probably be missing for a bit as I now have a MORE POWER toy to set up.:D

Don

New computer I bet.

Yes and shed loads of power. Well it will have when I get it up and running. 2 gigs RAM.

In anticipation of learning loads here and the upcomming Nikon NX, I thought I should do something now, may get away with the spend in this financial year.:D

Got in before any change of mind by the management.:rolleyes:

Not allowed to play until tomorrow though.:(

Don

I should have mentioned I will still use the laptop to stay in touch with the problems faced by those with more modest machines.

Don

Aww shucks, can't play. You will definately need new software to go on machine,;) I can always learn and teach at same time;)

Christine,

The reasoning behind still using the laptop and duplicating what goes on here is best illustrated by my stitch in Snowyowls thread. I ran out of RAM very quickly and so the whole thing took about 1/2 hour.

Don