Wikipedia:Picture peer review/Rocky Mountains National Park

Rocky Mountains National Park

**Edit 2** by jjron (I think I've edited it as much as I'm going to)

I want some reviews on this picture from other people. I am not quite sure what to think of it myself.

Nominated by: Massimo Catarinella (talk) 04:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

I love the composition; it's so good, I feel like I've seen other photographs of the same scene. This must be a popular spot; or, I'm crazy. As far as image quality goes, it looks slightly washed out; I would like to see better contrast, particularly in the green of the trees, and a bluer sky which can sometimes be obtained using a CPL. I think the water lillies are somewhat distracting, although, unless you carry a kayak in your camera bag, there's not much you can do about it. Fletcher (talk) 23:53, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I agree it looks washed out; I downloaded it last night to try to pick that up a bit. I did an edit to try to improve contrast, saturation, and sharpness. A downsized version is here. I'm still not that happy with the sky, but there's not much there to work with; going beyond this may be considered 'inappropriate' digital manipulation as it would almost be heading into a faked sky. I'd prefer to get the sky about the same as the colour of the reflected sky in water though. BTW I don't mind the lilies, but I don't find the composition totally captivating. --jjron (talk) 09:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment:I think the image here shows the potential of the reflected forest and mountains in the lake, which is what I meant by saying the lilies are distracting. Not a huge deal though. Fletcher (talk) 12:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree the capture of the reflections is better in the linked image. Funnily enough the sky is a nicer blue in the reflection in that one as well. Any thoughts on the edit? I am considering bumping up the blues in the sky a bit further. --jjron (talk) 19:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The edit looks a lot better. Is the image tilted a little? Fletcher (talk) 04:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, gee, I'm not sure. I got the same impression, but while I was editing it I tried to straighten it, and it didn't look right. Going on the trees, they actually seem to be pretty vertical. I think what might be happening is that the shoreline across the water actually bends away from the viewer at image-right, but the eye sees this as a horizon and thinks it should be level, so therefore thinks the image is tilted. The extra white on the shore at the right simply amplifies this effect. But I could be wrong. --jjron (talk) 15:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Edit 2 uploaded. Diffs from Edit 1: I ended up I did straighten it (I think it was 0.6° clockwise); I think it looks better, but hope I didn't go too far. I think the sky looks a lot better now with the stronger blue; sky was also a bit messy, noticeable when you got rid of the 'washed out' appearance, so I did a minor denoise to clean that up. Downsized a little bit, but relatively minor, considerably less than for Edit1. --jjron (talk) 13:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seconder

Weak support to jjron's edit (or future edits -- they'll be good). I like the image a lot, but it bugs me I can imagine how cool it would be if there weren't lilies marring the reflection and if the water were perfectly still. Those things are beyond the photographer's control, of course. I'm supposed to be on vacation so can't comment further. Fletcher (talk) 04:54, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Of course we could edit out the lilies, but I suspect that may definitely be 'too much' manipulation :-). BTW, if anyone's thinking of nominating, please wait till I put up Edit 2 to look at, with a bit more sky work done on it (I'll put it up fullsize as well if I think it's my final edit). --jjron (talk) 15:37, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - OK, if someone wants to nominate this, go ahead now. I wouldn't give it a huge chance (it's possibly a little generic, and still has some minor technical issues), but would be interesting to see what response it got. --jjron (talk) 13:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - BTW, I don't think this is in any articles. Make sure that is fixed before nominating. If I have missed something and the original is in an article, I'd suggest replacing it with Edit2. --jjron (talk) 13:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]