[Zig]

We had some very bright days earlier this week; these are from the same day at one of my fave spots locally.
Both were taken with the stock nifty-fifty, handheld for f8 or as near as I could get...

First is a colour offering: a couple of stops difference between fore and back, so had to be careful with layered grads and dodge/burn. I started with a lo-contrast, lo-saturation conversion from raw, using Canon's Zoom Browser...



This old and gnarled fave really benefitted from the polariser to deepen the sky: it increased the contrast somewhat, so I converted at lo-contrast...sort of negating some of the effects of the pseudo-red filtration I was trying to achieve SO I thought I'd add a tad of diffusion as a layer...

[matthew]

I really like the first image. The square format reflects the care that was clearly taken in the composition.

The tree is a bit more of a puzzle. The middle ground looks sharper than the ends of the branches. (diffusion?) I'd prefer to see a bit more separation with the background. As it stands it's an interesting tree, but it doesn't have the strength of the landscape.

[Janika]

I'd go with #2 for the light effect. Very nice!