Speed Challenge 22

[alan.lush]

Ok folks,

Attached is a landscape taken across the road from my house. The Fens are not noted for their impressive landscape, but caught at the right time you can get some hauntingly beautiful images. I have a feeling that there is a good photo in this shot somewhere, but as yet I have not managed to find it. So the challenge is to find that photo.

I want something that looks like a photo at the end, so the more wacky photoshop filters (oil paint for example) are excluded, or at least will not be judged favorably, but otherwise use whatever photoshop techniques you want to turn this into the best colour or black and white image you can come up with.

I'll give it 5 days.

Happy shopping...

[kris10]

I thought this was a nice photo to begin with but thought that maybe more color would enhance it a bit.* I also chose a panoramic crop.

[alan.lush]

Nicely done, I like that a lot.

[Paul Shields]

Nice challenge Alan.

This gave me a chance to learn a bit more about adjustment layers - something I've only just started getting into.

[ohenry]

Here's my entry.

[Stephanie]

[scoundrel1728]

Here's mine:

[bavanor]

I tried something completely different. Still like Ohenry's though

[scoundrel1728]

I considered entering a monochrome version too, but there was nothing said about entering more than once so I defaulted to the assumption of only one entry per customer.

[alan.lush]

Ok, so time to pick a winner (thanks for the prompt Paul, I've been a little tied up )

Well it's a tough decision, all entries are bettre than I managed with this image. I am afraid I am a fan of colour casts though, so while I understand the desire to colour balance an image like this, it is not really to my taste - especially as the original had such wonderfully subdued colours. I also like the B&W/panoramic, but there is too much grain in this one for my taste.

So, with careful consideration it came down to a choice of two.

Kris: I think the red cast works well in this image, and I really like the panoramic crop. Bizarrely, despite being a big fan of the panoramic format, it didn't occur to me to do this with this image.

Paul: I really like what you have done. The sepia tone and the sharpening works very nicely. I would appreciate it if you could give me a run-down of the steps you used to get to this result.

I think my ideal would be a combination of these two - which I may now have a crack at, but as I have to pick a single winner I think Kris just has the edge.

So over to you Kris for the next challenge.