Autumn horse (second version)

[Seb]

I started from scratch with another shot were I zoomed in some more.

Comments are welcome.

Seb

[Knight]

Wish it was fall again looking at your photo , its a real nice photo so natural i like it

[drjimmy42]

Very nice shot! I didn't see the original, however this strikes me as a scene with so much vibrant color, that the horse, presumably the subject, tends to get lost. I just tried recently to take picture of a long tree against a background of other trees. It was completely lost on all the other texture so you could barely see it. I this case its the similar colors, and not the texture that is at work. I'm not sure what you could do to bring out the horse more. Maybe since its color is so similar to the trees, that doing this in B&W would allow the smoother texture of the horse be the contrast against the rest of the scene as opposed to the color.

[efjeld]

Nice! I love the fall colors. I'd rather look forward to spring than fall though! ;)

[Dzerzhinski46]

Dear Seb,

I like the colors in this comp. The lovely yellows and browns, great Fall colors. I would say though, that the horse dipping his mouth into the hay messes up the look a little bit. It would be nice if the horse's mouth wasn't cut off. Just a small nit pick, and one you didn't have too much control over. A nice photo.

Dzerzhinski

[jar_e]

I like this much more over the original. Definately a much more stronger subject, yet still beautiful colors and composition.

Great shot!

Jared

[gahspidy]

Seb, much better than the first. Very nice image. It only could have been improved by shooting at time of day when sun is fading and not so harsh. nice. I like that you go back to finish what you start. good quality

[Seb]

Hi guys,

Thanks to all of you who commented here. While I don't expect to turn this into a portfolio piece (harsh light) I felt like messing some more with the picture to make the horse stand out.

Here is a third version (mostly for fun).

regards

Seb

[drjimmy42]

I like this one much better. The leaves are much softer and the horse stands out more. What did you do to it?

[Seb]

I like this one much better. The leaves are much softer and the horse stands out more. What did you do to it?

Hello, thanks for looking.

Actually the manipulation was quite simple (I even wonder why I didn't thought about it at the first place).

I took the picture as it was and created an hue/saturation adjustment layer. I turned the saturation of the layer all way down to get a b&w. I used the eraser tool set at 100% and erased the layer over the horse, restoring its original color (at that point, I had a full color horse in a b&w picture). Then I progressively brought back saturation to the layer until I was satisfied by the contrast of saturation betwen the horse and the rest of the scene. Actually there is a difference of 21 "units" betwen the saturation of the horse and the rest of the picture.

regards

Seb

[Tuna]

A much cleaner composition than the first one, Seb. Looks great.

Tuna

[gahspidy]

Seb, good work. The eraser brush and layers are my weapons of choice and I think they are underated in comparison to using masks. Also, if you do too much with the eraser brush, you can use the history brush to restore. I find it very easy to work with.