I love the composition. My eye was wandering all over the place though and wouldn't settle into the diagonal from the bridge following the water.
Granted, aesthetics are subjective. I played with it a bit to figure out why my eye wasn't following the water. What I found was that the water and the swampy area around it were lacking contrast. It may have been that the shadows were boosted in this area for detail, but lost the contrast. Also, there is some yellow/green saturation in the image that carries to the water. It's muted there, but dramatic in the surrounding. The contrast and the saturation is greater away from the water. That's what was drawing my eye away from the diagonal.
Here's a series of adjustments just to give you an idea of what I was playing with:
1. Increase contrast in the water/swamp (and some of the darker areas in general) with a curves adjustment.
2. To differentiate the water from the surroundings, I added a little blue to negate some of the yellow and keep it from competing for saturation with the surroundings.
3. I really like the ethereal feel of the original image, and I'm not sure I like this adjustment. That said, reducing the green saturation and luminance levels a bit make the bright/saturated surroundings a bit less drawing. This one is just meant as an example of experimenting with directing my eyes.
This was a really fun image to play with. Thank you for posting!
beautiful work, magic shot
Beautiful shot.
I love the composition. My eye was wandering all over the place though and wouldn't settle into the diagonal from the bridge following the water.
Granted, aesthetics are subjective. I played with it a bit to figure out why my eye wasn't following the water. What I found was that the water and the swampy area around it were lacking contrast. It may have been that the shadows were boosted in this area for detail, but lost the contrast. Also, there is some yellow/green saturation in the image that carries to the water. It's muted there, but dramatic in the surrounding. The contrast and the saturation is greater away from the water. That's what was drawing my eye away from the diagonal.
Here's a series of adjustments just to give you an idea of what I was playing with:
1. Increase contrast in the water/swamp (and some of the darker areas in general) with a curves adjustment.
2. To differentiate the water from the surroundings, I added a little blue to negate some of the yellow and keep it from competing for saturation with the surroundings.
3. I really like the ethereal feel of the original image, and I'm not sure I like this adjustment. That said, reducing the green saturation and luminance levels a bit make the bright/saturated surroundings a bit less drawing. This one is just meant as an example of experimenting with directing my eyes.
This was a really fun image to play with. Thank you for posting!