Weekly Competition - Ben Nevis from Corpach

Following the constructive comments by JAK on my entry for last week's competition on Black and White Landscapes I have reworked my photo of Ben Nevis from Corpach to lighten the hillside. For comparison I have included the original colour. The photo was taken in poor light with a snow storm coming in and I think works far better in black and white, I was never happy with the original colour and thanks to JAK's competition and comments I now have an image that is greatly improved.

Well done, that's brought out more detail. Hadn't realised that the orginal could have been so dark.
I've had a play with it, have I gone too far for your liking?



That's processed similar to how Glyn worked his.
If you had a raw file for it it would give more scope for recovery.

John. It was always a compromise between keeping the clouds looking threatening and lightening the foreground. Initially I chose the clouds but now prefer the lighter foreground to add more interest.

If you could have got closer to that tree in the bottom right hand corner it would have given you a very picturesque foreground and added depth. Always try and get some foreground interest if you can. Some people it would seem carry round a tree branch with them to do just that (so it would seem!)

I may be strange in this but i prefer the coloured version. To me it depicts the atmosphere and mood of highlands. Granted in colour it looks less contrasty, toned down a bit, but also has more distinct charakter and that is as I fondly remember Scotland. And that is coming from avid bw shooter.

Kingfisher, nothing strange in liking the colour version. In fact another version of the colour shot hangs in my hallway. The light levels and contrast were poor due to the snow storm that was coming in and you are quite right that the colour shot reflects the weather at the time.

However I was never happy that Ben Nevis stood out due to the limited exposure range of the istD and I felt the black and white version improved on that and brought the clouds out as well.