Transitional

[Cocateho]

I tried to capture a time of year that will soon be upon many of us, and that is the transition from summer to fall. It's easy enough to plop brightly colored trees into a scene and call it an "autumn" scene but I haven't seen anyone attempt to capture the subtleties in the change of the seasons which is what I've attempted here. I hope you all enjoy.

- side note, I've gotten the darkness and saturation to be a good mix on my monitor but it shows up both darker and less saturated on my phone screen so I'm interested to know what it looks like for you guys.

[yossam]

Little too dark on my monitor..............

[masonspappy]

Too dark on mine also.  But it looks like the image has got a lot of potential

[Cocateho]

A couple adjustments, any better?

[Oshyan]

I love the softness and subtlety of the image. It does still seem a little dark, but that may be a a stylistic choice. Personally I'd still like to see a higher overall brightness though, for example if I were photographing this scene I would probably increase exposure by a full stop, which might come close to blowing out the sky, but would bring out a lot of nice detail.

- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

Ill add and change a little in my suggestion to what oshyan is sharing.

First I love the blacks, and the softness Oshyan mentioned too. And I do agree that there could be some light added. But Perhaps not by increasing exposure or anything that could take away those deep rich blacks (definitely the softness makes them so rich)

I was thinking you could use some holes in the clouds to allow some nice beams of light to warm and lighten a few strategic places. Maybe even use a spot light carefully focused?

Also, this should be a pano, where what you have shown is the left most part of the image. something similar should be on the right side. And beyond the tree line off in the distance some nice peaks!

Then detail the heck out of the exposed rock and ground.

I like the first image better, myself.

[Dune]

I prefer the second one, and you've got a nice color scheme. It has a mood, and I'm afraid you loose that if you make it 'more realistic' by lighting up. What I do crit is the rock and waterside; you should work on that; wet waterline, grasses, mosses, more colors on the rock, maybe some floating plant debris near the shore, that sort of stuff.
The softness is post I presume?

[mhaze]

Overall I like this image very much. It's different and moody.  I agree with Dune. As this is probably still or slow moving water, you need some reeds, trees fallen into the water etc. I also agree with Badger, if you could add some light beams it would add to the drama

[archonforest]

I like it a lot already and do agree with some lights coming through the clouds to light up the area.

[choronr]

Composed nicely; but, I'd be tempted to add an additional sun setting it at low altitude and strength such as to add some depth to the blackness.

[DannyG]

2nd one is the best IMHO, great colors and mood

[otakar]

I am going to second Dune. I wonder if you could just increase the reflectivity of the leaves and needles allow the light to propagate more into the trees. The sun seems to be fairly high judging from the shadows thrown, maybe up its strength? I do like the mood as well.

[cyphyr]

Lovely and subtle but I do agree about the darkness. On your monitor can you see much detail in the shadow?

To get holes in the clouds exactly where you want them so you gget light on the parts of the scene you want and the possibility of light rays use a Simple shape shader plugged into a Fractal warp shader plugged into the cloud density Fractal's Mask by shader input.

[zaxxon]

The darkness of the image is a bit much, but the piece's title is "transitional"; a sort of a foggy 'gloaming', so maybe the subtle dark tones are intended to set the mood. Perhaps a different compositional approach to create a 'center' or some line for the eye to follow would add some interest.  Cyphr's tip on a positional light beam is a great suggestion (thanks for the that from me as well!). You're doing some nice work, looking forward to more.

[Dune]

To break open the sky, you can also use a simple mask (like an irregular white dot, or a warped simple dot), and point that image map shader mask at the sun from the spot you want your light on, by a camera.