Malvern

One from the hills

Peace, relaxation, all the things that rebalance the mind...it looks a great spot to be.

That's a really good shot - I'd like to see it bigger!

I've lived in Malvern all my life and I still can't get shots as good as this one

That is really lovely. Balanced and serene. I love the colours, the greens and the textures in the clouds. I had noticed how everything is very green this year - must be all the rain. Oh to be in England - or is it eastern Australia, I can't quite tell!

I like it very much, it has a lot to draw the eye in and to explore, and the undulations in the lighting levels across the ground add to the depth of it - very well taken image!

I've got a few C & C's - firstly with framing there's 2 ideas I'd try out just to see if it improves it ... 1) make it more pano by chopping the top off a bit, less sky ... or 2) crop the right side and bottom a bit to make it more square.

There's some untidy smudging near the horizon line which looks as if you have been doing some editing there already, but probably the blend at the horizon needs to be firmed up. The blue haze, whilst common on this type of shot, is a rather foreign colour here, so I would suggest a saturation adjustment layer, whack down the blue / cyan channels (pull luminance up a bit to restore the brightness), then use masking to limit the adjustment to the horizon and far foreground area. This will give you more consistent colour right to the horizon. And while you're at that, I'd use the mask to pull some of the blue tone out of the cloud shadows.

And finally I think the clouds are too contrasty with rather dark shadows - I'd suggest a levels adjustment layer, pull up the shadows and midtone inputs a bit while reducing the highlight output as well to prevent clipping the whites - then mask to restrict it to the sky only.

Just some ideas, what I would naturally do if it were mine - be interesting to see if it helps

It's a beautiful view, a well taken and contrasty image that does appeal to me. Nigel has made some suggestions above, I'm not sure I would agree with all of them as I quite like the contrasty nature of the shot as it is, but no doubt there will be other opinions!

It has a great lead-in for the eye and lots of nice detail. I wouldn't crop the sky, it looks proportioned correctly to me. The light is lovely and the sky looks good, I would possibly reduce the blue / cyan a little in line with what Nigel said.

Regards
David

I know from experience that landscape photography in these lowish English hills is not easy. Great selection of format/crop makes the most of the scene. Doesn't all that green tell of a wet spring?

My kind of shot - very nice indeed with a pleasing mix of horizontal, vertical (almost) and diagonal lines.

Personally the crop works as it is for me.

As for the slightly too blue clouds - I may be wrong, but to me - if I were being hyper critical - I think the whole image is slightly too blue - not just the clouds and I suspect this is simply the WB setting - before messing around with saturation levels - you may find that a simple WB adjustment does the job - it often does IME.

Personally I would not attempt to improve the horizon for 2 reasons - one - I don't really think it is an issue, and two - I tend to find such attempts end up making it look worse - but that is quite possibly my lack of pp skill

If it were my image - I would be doing very little to it other than enjoying it.

Carl

agree with Carl completely, a beautiful scene. as for the haze colour if you just moved the temperature slider a tad to the warm side it would probably disappear but it does not really matter that much.

I'm also wondering if this is the English Malvern. Its years since I've been to the top of the Worcestershire/Herefordshire Malvern Hills to enjoy one of the most magnificent views in all England but somehow this all looks a little too green. Fine for the surrounding countryside but my memory, admittedly suspect after all these years, suggests the tops of the Malverns are not quite so green and grassy as this but more moorland-like.
However its a fine view and I'm not going to engage in the technical debate over this enjoyable image.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

Beautiful image. The crop is absolutely fine IMO; nicely balanced, good lead-in and fabulous clouds.
As above, a small WB adjustment would be enough to remove the blue cast all over.
Just to satisfy myself tho', I dropped it into PS, hit auto colour (feelin' lucky) and then faded the result (CMD-Shift-F) to about 30 or 40 percent.
And just for fun, some broad, local adjustment on the foreground to warm it back up after the fade. So, exaggerate the colour change front to back, rather than reducing it.

Nice shot Don

Well done to your Dad being out and about at 87