Burntside Lake and Photoshop CS2

[Steve Foss]

Hey all:

Because laker fishing was so slow on Saturday and Monday, and because business has been slow since, I had time to both capture a few images and experiment with them.

The first is of a typical Bside laker fishing scene, where a fella is set up close to shore but where the water's probably 60 feet deep. Standard shot that illustrates our wonderful life up on the edge of the Canadian Shield.

The second shot is also a very typical windswept Burntside image, with the sun off camera mostly obscured by mist but offering enough light to find detail in the shadows. I worked in CS2 to give this a watercolor feel, edging toward the abstract.

I rarely look for critiques, but in this case I'd really like to know whether you like the second image, and specifically why you do or why you don't.

[Dave S]

When I scrolled down to the second image, it kind of took me off guard. It appeared as though the evergreens in the foreground really stood out as if they were from a totally separate photo. The faded out background really makes them "jump out" of the picture.

As always, nice work Steve.

[reelemin]

Steve the 2nd one is great. How did you do it. With layers, if so, how did you seperate the background from the forground trees. Or the magic wand, or one of lasso tools. hmmm. Now I need to know

[Ryan_V]

makes me remember how much I loved living in Ely!!! was a short time, but great none-the-less!!

[finnbay]

Steve,

I like the effect and you've done it well. The three dimensional look is great. Being just a little picky, the foreground part is a little too square for me. Almost would have liked to see a peak in the middle on the left hand side, maybe even traveling above the background just a little. Certainly an effect worth experimenting with.

Ken

[Steve Foss]

Thanks, everybody.

The effect was achieved using the filters-watercolor option in CS2 and then adjusting slightly so it looked right to my eye. The background was much more faded than the foreground island in the original, but not quite to the degree that it's see here.

I head you on the squareness, Ken. It actually was one of the things that attracted me initially. All those white pines seem pretty much exactly the same age.