Late Afternoon at the Lake
The other day I decided to visit Hauser Lake in the Idaho Panhandle just east of the border with Washington. I drove along the eastern shore, and the clouds to the west looked quite dramatic, especially with the sun filtering through. I pulled over at a driveway by the shore and set about snapping some photos with my phone. Here are a couple which turned out well, and some edited versions.
This first photo uses my phone's HDR settings to hopefully balance the bright sun filtering through the clouds and the dark shadowed hillside on the far shore. I think it worked OK.
Autumn colors outside the towns and cities aren't generally very vibrant compared to the rich reds and oranges one might see in urbanized areas. The native larch (a conifer that is deciduous rather than evergreen) and aspen turn yellow, while the pines and firs stay green.
I used GIMP to adjust the image above with tweaks to the light and shadow along with turning the saturation down for a monochromatic look. I like how the high cirrus clouds contrast with the darker cumulus potential rain clouds. What do you think?
The second photo is not in HDR, so I tried a couple passes with editing the colors in GIMP by playing with saturation, curves, and light/shadow intensity. Then I turned down the saturation for monochrome before resetting it to try an oil painting filter. Which version appeals to you most?
I don't claim to be any kind of expert in GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), but just diving in with a photo I took to play with the settings and see what happens has helped me figure out a lot of its features.
Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) can be hit-or-miss, but like Audacity for audio, GIMP has a lot of useful tutorials and community support in addition to decent documentation.
Is it really competition for Adobe Photoshop? I don't know. This is free software and seems more capable than anything I'll need, plus there's no weird corporate license agreement to worry about, so give it a go if you want to edit photos. It also runs on everything from high-end PCs to a Raspberry Pi, so you don't need cutting-edge hardware, just extra rendering patience if your system is under-powered and you're running several processes.
I learned something new about the Larch. I thought at first they might be dead. Yes, the aspen is pretty yellow. Oddly though in my corner of the world, depending on climate conditions, some can get to orange and even red. Still even when they stay gold, the understory tends to be brilliant red.
But I do miss the maples and oaks of Vancouver:)
I did not detour to see this on my recent road trip, but I think you will be amused by this article.
https://thatoregonlife.com/2023/09/how-to-catch-a-glimpse-of-oregons-elusive-smiley-face-hill/
That is cool:)
These are lovely ... I do like the contrast between the cirrus and nimbus clouds in black and white, and the oil painting filter is lovely as well ... but I do prefer the natural pictures ... you have a good eye for nature photography.
Wow, that first photo is spectacular; I'd say it more than worked out okay. I think it is better than the black and white version; I think the B&W is too stark; there's more depth and nuance with the subtle transition in the color.
I've used GIMP, but that was before I knew very much about editing photos, so I can't really judge it. I probably should give it a try again, rather than paying $20 a month for Photoshop.
I like the 'natural' edits of both photos. Both are good, but that first one especially.
I have not conquered photo editing, yet, maybe I can give this a try. I like the top photos in both pictures.
What if I made a post showing which tools I used in GIMP for this kind of editing?
That would be a good post, not only for me but others like me. I know I can't be the only one that does not understand how to edit photos.
Yes, that would include me, too!
I hope this Gimp app is easy.
I had an app that I understood how to use on my old laptop and I asked my granddaughter to put it on this one, she says Oh grandma, you need this one, it is easy. it is called CapCut. I can not figure it out, I think it is for making movie clips but I also think you are supposed to be able to edit photos, too. But I can not figure out how to do anything with it. What is easy for her is not easy for me. :(
yeah that first one is incred cloud action
In the first photo, I prefer the natural colors to the black and white. The sky looks so much more alive, and I can see the fall colors along the shoreline.
For the second photo, I like the first version because it looks natural, but the second version really brings out the colors of the foliage. Yet the sky looks a bit fake; I don't recall ever seeing a sky quite that color.
Both are excellent photographs, in my opinion.
One of the hazards of quick-and-dirty photo editing. I think I will write a post about how to at least somewhat mitigate this effect.
Bellas fotos 💯🤗
@jacobtothe, I paid out 1.302 HIVE and 0.000 HBD to reward 7 comments in this discussion thread.