Iceland

C&C welcome,
feel free to play

Nice enough, just added level's adjustment to sky and foreground, to give it more drama.

link

Can't seem to get it to post in thread !!!

Nice pic! I made pretty much the same adjustments, adjusting levels in the sky and seperately for the foreground. A slight curves adjustment overall too, and I cropped a bit off the bottom:

Thats a very dramatic landscape. The adjusted version has much more impact.
David

Same here.

Davex

And from me

{throws caution to the winds} I'm going to say I prefer the first. I know that 'impact-wise' Jon and SnappyChappy's reworks have more 'gusto', but, having been to Iceland, I've gotta say, they're both wrong! They make the scene look like something 'British Countryside' - especially Jon's, which is very green-fields and sun breaking through the clouds.

But for me, the single most undeniable thing about Iceland, was how bleak it was. The whole island is like the surface of the flippin' moon! It's a cross between a volcanic hell and a low-contrast ashen slagheap spread liberally across a rocky outcrop - with a fair few other-worldly glaciers and hot-water and steam geysers adding the general feeling of being on a different planet!

And for those reasons, I think the existing colours in Dave's original are right. Perhaps the contrast could be increased a touch, but not too much, really. Iceland is grungily grey, for the most part! To the extent where this might've actually been better done in monochrome, and some brightening done only on the two geysers in the shot, leaving the rest as, effectively, a 'moon shot'.

Sorry to buck the trend - I do fully accept that Jon's version is a 'better photo', in the classic sense, but for me, it's less 'real'. If I didn't know this was Iceland (am I right in thinking this is at or near the Blue Lagoon, btw?) then Jon's would've been fine - but alas, I do. And I recommend a trip there, for anyone interested... it really is the closest landscape you'll ever find on Earth, to being 'outer space!'

I've never been to Iceland, but I prefer the original too. The adjusted version looks a little too unnatural to be true.

What a place...imagine being there. The pictures, the pictures...

It is a fantastic place, but the weather, the weather
Some more shots are here if you are interested. link

Davex.

Sorry Neil,
It`s actually east of Myvatn. a godforsaken ( but wonderful ) place if ever there was one.

Davex.

Very interesting comments by Neil and I can see where he is coming from. It is something I actually considered when I went to Ascnsion Island, another volcanic landscape. In the end I decided I wanted images with more impact than they had sttraight out of the camera, so I adjusted levels, contrast and sometiimes saturatioon to get the images lookking more interesting than the drab grey that makes up much of the island.

It brings up the question whether photgraphy is about faiithfully recording something or making a pleasing image? If the former, then where do mono image fit in?

I would however say that Dr Orloffs reasoon for preferring the original is perfectly valid, even though in some ways it amounts to much the same thing: the difference being he is not assessing the image from actual knowledge of the subject matter.

This has come up a couple of times with images from Iceland i have recently posted, perhaps the colours are so unusual it makes us almost subconsciously go into abstract mode, which encourages us to boost saturation and contrast.

Davex.

Me too, FWIW.