Fall on the St. Louis River, MN

[PaulasaurusRex]

Took this photo this past weekend on a hiking trip to Jay Cooke State Park in northern, MN. Photo was taken with a canon Xsi and the 18-55 kit lens. Some PP done in Photomatix and cropping done in Photoshop.

[LeeIs]

Hellow paul. the shot looks very soft. I really can't see anything in focus. Photomatrix sounds like the culprit here. I'm actually debating with myself whether to get it or not. It's a great software for HDR, the photoshop plug just doesn't cut it for me and I might actually get the photomatrix which is much better.

I think this shot is way out of focus man, with no central 'draw me in' area.

[jetrim]

I think maybe a little higher angle of attack might have done wonders for this photo. You have a very nice bend in the river which would give it the central "draw me in" area Leels spoke of, if it didn't get so lost in rocks, reflections, and brush. This may not be possible, as it seems like you are already shooting from standing height, looking uphill, but getting the camera an extra 2 to 3 feet higher probably would have made all the difference in the world.

[EOSThree]

The colors are great, the subject has some interest. The photo is soft, the sky has a funky blotchy look.

I agree with Lee that Photomatix is probably the trouble here. I am guessing you handheld these and that resulted in three slightly different images. Try using the "align by matching features" this will help eliminate the shake errors.

[PaulasaurusRex]

Thanks for all the input. The hi-res image on my mac is perfectly in focus. I'm guessing somewhere along the down sizing for uploading the image lost its crispness(user error). I'll have to double check that and repost. Photomatix definitely caused a little softness as I used a single image and just did some tone adjustments to boost color a bit.

Photomatix is definitely to blame for the blotchy sky. Before it was overcast and much lighter. This was my first time using this program.

Good tips. Now i'll have to drive a couple hours to reshoot the pic.

[Frog]

The first thing I noticed was the nice colors but then I saw it looks flat and also agree with all the above.
Why did you use photomatix on a single image?
Was it shot in raw format?
If so, I think you could adjust exposure up and down 3 stops and then use those 3 images for hdr though I'm not sure if that works or not.

[PaulasaurusRex]

The reason I used photomatix on a single image was, well just for the heck of it. I was putting together bracketed images and getting ok results and was just curious to see what would happen with a single image converted to HDR then adjusted with Tone Mapping and voila, I got the above image.

I did not shoot the image in RAW so I can't adjust it as you suggested. Unfortunately.

[jas_pata]

sorry for alittle off topic-ness heh.. but i noticed sort of the same softness with my xsi and kit lens when shooting landscape type pictures... i was using AF and had the picture style set to "Landscape".. i did noticed that when i brought the pic into Digital Photo Professional ( software that came with the camera ) that the sharpness was at 0 / 500..