Country Road

[Xia_Ke]

Alright now... BE BRUTAL... I'm considering this for a contest entry. Theme is angular or curvy. Okay, now let me have it

[livin4lax09]

i like it. brighten up the blue though and itll look much nicer. should be easy to do with curves.

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks Brent Bumped it up just a hair. This better or you think maybe a little more?

[PrevailingConditions]

I like the second better than the first. I would be curious to see if it were just a smidgen brighter as well.

Overall, it's a nice shot. I like the lines and colors.

PC

[livin4lax09]

hmm, i was thinking the blue looked different when it was darker. mind if i edit it to show you what I mean?

[Xia_Ke]

Have at it Brent ;)

[Xia_Ke]

Brent, here's the original crop if it helps...

[livin4lax09]

here ya go...

here's what I originally had in mind. I faded the road near the bottom of the frame and then faded the small curve. got rid of some of the stray light from the lights, and voila.



and then i saw it could go the other way too.

[Greg McCary]

I think Brent's second is the keeper in my book, nice edit. And great capture Xia_Ke

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks Brent I like that top one better. Never would have thought to fade out the small curve but, do think it focuses the image more. Just curious, what did you use for cleaning up the stray light? Just use the burning tool?

[Xia_Ke]

I think Brent's second is the keeper in my book, nice edit. And great capture Xia_Ke

Thanks Greg I originally though about keeping in some of the trees along the side of the road but, my editing skills still need a lot of improvement and I just couldn't get the trees to pop the way I wanted. Any suggestions, or do you think a subtler tree line like in Brent's second photo? And then I guess comes the questions do I go with what I personally like better or do I go for what I think might do better in the contest?

[livin4lax09]

for the stay light off the beams, yes I just burned them in on the sides with 20 pix, 0 hardness. For the reflection on the road, I just took a sample of the road to the left of it and cloned it out.

As far as which one will work better in the contest, if it's supposed to be angular and curvy, the first one has much more emphasis on the lines. hope the contest works out well for you.

[GB1]

I'm always a sucker for these type shots... They are like painting with light instead of a brush. Not totally sure about the composition. Seems like you were at too flat of an angle? I DO like the Z look to it. But there's just a bit too much negative space, and I don't think you can fix it by a crop. The angle is the main problem. Perhaps if there was something in the background (a forrest, city, etc) it would really be a knockout shot!

GB

[Xia_Ke]

Damn, I think I'm gonna have to go back and reshoot this Just can't quite get it right. I agree GB that a higher angle would work better, unfortunately this was already up about as high as I could get my tripod due to the shoulder of the road sloping down. Just for shits and giggles here's another slight variation I was playing with tonight...

[Xia_Ke]

Just thought I'd post an update. I was going to reshoot because of second guess myself, then someone else posted a pic of a curvy road and I what I planned to reshoot was going to be very similar. So, I decide to enter my last edit, posted in the pic above. If anyone wants to check out the contest, here's a link: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=62164 . It's open to everyone. Anyone else gonna enter????

[ericbenjamin27]

the parallel positioning of the lines in the road and the headlights combine for an amazing catch. i would like to see the road highlighted just a bit more to give balance to the lights. this photo is definitely eye catching and had me staring at it for more than just a few seconds. that's a successful photo to me.

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks you very much for the compliment Eric, I'm glad you liked it