After the burning . . .

[gahspidy]

Roger. . .Thanks for clarifying for me.

Seb . . . I see what you mean here. I looked at the file closely (100%) and do not see halos, at least to an extent where they would be apparent in a print. I notice that when compressing for web display, dark edges against light bg get this effect, sometimes more and sometimes less. As a matter of fact, I can see halos around the edges of the black border surrounding the frame. There were none there before I resized for web display.
Yes, I did use the shadow/highlight tool here but limited its use to the fg area below tree.
This was one of several exposures, and an underexposed one at that. I tried working on a image of higher expoure and am happier with the overall result. I'll post it here for comparison.
thanks

Frog . . .I've been told many times that I am my own worst critic. You bring up an interesting observation about the two trees. I have another composition of this scene where there are three. The camera was panned over a bit more to the left and another tree in the distance was in on the left side, with the main tree closer to middle frame. I did not like it at all. . .too cluttered and seem to throw off the balance of space as you pointed out. Empty spaces are as important as elements filling spaces. . yes, it makes sense to me.



This scene was shot at several different exposures in an attempt at creating an HDR image. I did not like what the result looked like. The HDR exposure looked fine, but because of ever so slight winds, the tree branches had moved between each exposure causing what looked like a slightly blurry image. This also occured with the reeds in the fg, and it completely lost the sharpness I was after.
If you don't mind, I am asking for your opinion of the result of my editing this scene of a slightly higher exposure. The sky is brighter, but I am far happier with the overall integrity of the image and the detail in the fg.