Sedona woods

[GB1]

Taken during a walk in Sedona, AZ. HDR (at it's finest? )

G

[Overbeyond]

Hello GB
The photograph looks too light and bright for me. Whether this is due to your treatments (HDR) or camera settings I don't know. The composition itself is not too bad but I think it is "tree heavy" on the left.
You really get around to incredible places.

[n8]

I agree. It needs some more punch in the blacks.

[Greg McCary]

Yep. Looks flat. Boost the contrast and saturation. Maybe go back to the HDR files and drop one of the bright exposures?

[GB1]

Thanks fellows. Yeah, this one may be a bit hazy-looking. I'm not sure why, but I tried it again with your suggestion Greg, dropping the brightest image. This one looks more realistic, but I don't know if I like that odd-looking blue sky... hmm.

Tom, the heavy tree was sort of intentional: I didn't think a pic where the mountain was the only dominant object would work, for the lighting wasn't spectacular that day. Yeah I do get around, but it's not as hard as it seems as the American Southwest is crawling with ops. It's actually pretty hard to miss them (I'm proof of that .. ha ha).

Anyway, always looking for HDR opportunities. It's the flavor of the year.

G

[Didache]

I see the problem: I prefer the second version for the contrast, but the sky does look much better in the original version.

For myself, I think that HDR just works well with some subjects and not with others. This is a relatively subtle application of it, and I wonder if a plain old straight image might have worked better (assuming you had more or less even light).

The heavy tree doesn't bother me at all and I rather like the framing of the mountain.

Cheers
Mike