# Old Riverside Snake Rail Fence



## PixelRabbit (May 8, 2013)

Took this shot today for about the bazillionth time, I've tried and tried to shoot the river out front but I can't seem to get it right.  Today the sky and light was yummy with small storms rolling through and I took this one.  It was close so I tonemapped it a bit and I'm pretty happy with it.  
Would love to hear your thoughts, before I edit a couple more, thanks for taking a look!


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## Steve5D (May 8, 2013)

Get rid of the bridge in the background and maybe sharpen it a hair and this'll be real nice...


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## PixelRabbit (May 8, 2013)

Haha thanks Steve, and I tried so hard to get that bridge lined up !  I'll take a look and see if I have anything that eliminates/minimizes the bridge for the next edits.


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## Steve5D (May 8, 2013)

PixelRabbit said:


> I'll take a look and see if I have anything that eliminates/minimizes the bridge for the next edits.



I've always found the clone tool to be rather handy in such situations...


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## PixelRabbit (May 8, 2013)

Steve5D said:


> I've always found the clone tool to be rather handy in such situations...



Well what a novel idea! I'll try that


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## PixelRabbit (May 8, 2013)

Ok Steve, no bridge! I think it leaves the focus on the fence and no longer draws the eye up away from it 

Thoughts?


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## squirrels (May 8, 2013)

I have to say, I like it without the bridge. Makes me want to sit there in the grass with a good book. My eye is still drawn down (or upstream) and away from the fence, but I can't tell if it's because I knew you'd done some clever cloning there. I like the tonemapping a lot.


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## Light Guru (May 8, 2013)

Not a vary good cloning job, but that aside the image just looked over cooked, tone back your processing. 

And maybe try it as a B&W


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## Rick50 (May 8, 2013)

I like the tonemapping too. Plus it's just a great scene. Good one!


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## manaheim (May 8, 2013)

The colors and textures are decadent. Is this a HDR?


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## PixelRabbit (May 9, 2013)

squirrels said:


> I have to say, I like it without the bridge. Makes me want to sit there in the grass with a good book. My eye is still drawn down (or upstream) and away from the fence, but I can't tell if it's because I knew you'd done some clever cloning there. I like the tonemapping a lot.


Thanks Squirrels  Yes my eye still goes there but I'm not a good measure, I really expect to see a bridge and get caught there looking for it since I'm so familiar with the spot lol


Light Guru said:


> Not a vary good cloning job, but that aside the image just looked over cooked, tone back your processing.
> 
> And maybe try it as a B&W


Hey Light Guru, thanks for your thoughts, I was going to gasp and be offended that you picked on my cloning job..... until I zoomed wayyy in on it lol I should have zoomed in closer to do it or something since I apparently can't see it well enough to judge without lol.  Now... the cooking I will defend a bit here, admittedly this is only my second tonemap but my personal taste tends to lean towards the more conservative end of HDR and this isn't making me go ugh too much ... or wow that's definitely HDR!  I might feel differently as I learn more but as of now I have to respectfully say I think it was cooked juuuuust about enough 
As for B&W I really like the idea and tried it on a couple in this set that I'm still working on, there is definite promise!


Rick50 said:


> I like the tonemapping too. Plus it's just a great scene. Good one!


Thanks Rick 


manaheim said:


> The colors and textures are decadent. Is this a HDR?


Hey C  It's tonemapped


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## squirrels (May 9, 2013)

Plus you cloned out one of your exits, and I know how important that can be for a rabbit! :lmao:


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## EIngerson (May 9, 2013)

I like it. The bridge being removed did work a bit better. I wonder what it would look like with your camera lower so you could see the water line through the gap below the angled log?


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## PixelRabbit (May 9, 2013)

squirrels said:


> Plus you cloned out one of your exits, and I know how important that can be for a rabbit! :lmao:


True! it kinda makes me twitch a bit looking at it  lol


EIngerson said:


> I like it. The bridge being removed did work a bit better. I wonder what it would look like with your camera lower so you could see the water line through the gap below the angled log?


Thanks Eric  I'm going to play around with the angles a bit on another good sky day, I was already laying on the ground to take this and I'm curious what I can get with carefully placed log to cover the bridge


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## Light Guru (May 9, 2013)

PixelRabbit said:


> Hey Light Guru, thanks for your thoughts, I was going to gasp and be offended that you picked on my cloning job..... until I zoomed wayyy in on it




No need to zoom WAY in there are obvious cloning lines that are easy to see on the right portion you removed.  Its easily seen just in the web posting without zooming in.



PixelRabbit said:


> Now... the cooking I will defend a bit here, admittedly this is only my second tonemap but my personal taste tends to lean towards the more conservative end of HDR and this isn't making me go ugh too much ... or wow that's definitely HDR! I might feel differently as I learn more but as of now I have to respectfully say I think it was cooked juuuuust about enough



But it DOES look obviously HDR.  In fact I don't even think the scene had enough dynamic range even need to do an HDR.  When you were metering he scene how may stops different were the shadows and the highlights?


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## PixelRabbit (May 9, 2013)

Light Guru said:


> PixelRabbit said:
> 
> 
> > Hey Light Guru, thanks for your thoughts, I was going to gasp and be offended that you picked on my cloning job..... until I zoomed wayyy in on it
> ...



Perhaps I should have clarified **I** needed to zoom in closer because of my personal vision issues and trying to get stupid prescriptions right etc... it truly looked ok to me with my currently blurry vision until I zoomed right in, I should have known better and will next time  Just didn't want to toss that in there and come off as as a woe is me, this is my excuse, I just owned the error.

This is a single image tonemapped not multiple exposure HDR.


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## FanBoy (May 9, 2013)

I like the texture of the fence, the composition and overall naturalness to the photo edit. If that's dandelion growing in the foreground, it would have been nice to have those in bloom as a color element.


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## kathyt (May 9, 2013)

I think it is a bit over saturated.


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## Derrel (May 9, 2013)

My eye goes right to the river and the most-distant point. I like the old rail fence, but the shot's not coming together quite right...the rails are big in the foreground, but are not holding my eye, and the background doesn't have enough detail or substance to make it worthwhile, visually. I think the foreground rail fence needs to be shown a bit more on the bottom...it needs some kind of an anchor in the foreground, OR the background deserves sharp focus and more magnification through longer focal length.

The "scene" itself, in the real world, is neat of that I am sure...it has the old fence, plus a fairly old steel post, and the river behind, but the photo is not quite coming together as a whole for me...it's not clear what the goal is...is it the near/far relationship we're supposed to enjoy? Is it the fence's proximity to the river? Is it the state of disrepair on the rail fence? It's a good subject, and I think a good picture can be made there. The decision to clone out the bridge; while understandable, that changes the scene materially. I wonder if it might not be better to move to the right a bit, and show a different view of the river behind? I dunno...I grew up partly in farming country...scenes like this change a lot with the seasons and the weather and even the time of day and the shadows.

I'm not sure, but maybe you're trying to use one lens where another lens might lead to a better picture?


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## PixelRabbit (May 9, 2013)

Thanks for your thoughts Fanboy, Kathy and Derrel 

Derrel, you have pretty much described how I feel about just about *every single* landscape shot I take.  I seem to struggle defining a focal point and balance and it all just ends up competing.  I'm to the point with the ones of the river that I have not much clue because it is so familiar.  I'm going to keep at it though, I know there are shots here, I just have to figure out where the heck they are!!
This was taken with the 18-200, there is a slope down to the river and I can't get back far enough without backing up a hill with the 100-400 although I haven't tried to shoot the river much with it yet.


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## Steve5D (May 9, 2013)

A somewhat close inspection (and not even that close) reveals that it's been cloned. Still, it looks better. A few more steps and you could make that image sing...


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## PixelRabbit (May 10, 2013)

Thanks Steve, I grabbed a pair of those cheap cheater reading glasses from the drug store yesterday and can see better with them than anything the doctor had tried, I now see the issue better (blush, can't believe I posted such a bad job). I'm going to try again and will post the results


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