Home for Christmas

Hi Howard. I'm just going to move this over to the Man and Nature gallery. Happy holidays!

My mistake, I rarely post to these galleries.
Thanx Marc & Merry Christmas

This is really nice Howard. Love the wide open sky. Looks like you live in a great location away from the rest of us.

Howard, I really like what you're going for here. I have a suggestion that would require me doing a repost, with your permission. No pressure!

Went back and took another look, and brought it up slightly..

Or how's this for brightening up the image?

LOL! I like it!

OK, my take, and again, this is just personal preference: the night scene is just gorgeous, it's that quiet country Americana right out of Norman Rockwell (beautiful surroundings you've been blessed with there!). With the light off in my room the sky and house/field in the middle ground are super. Separately I like the EFFECT of the headlight-lit path, but in this image I think it detracts. It's so bright I keep want to put up my hand to cover the light so I can see the stars. In my repost, all I did was select the road, open Levels, and move the black slider up to about 45, just a quick adjustment to make a point. Now the whole scene lays out so peacefully IMO. Others may like the path lit up and that's fine, this is just how I saw it. I do like the bright light on the left because it's obvious that it's generated by SOMEBODY, either car or lantern, and it leaves a bit of a mystery to who it is and what's going on. I keep waiting for someone to pop out onto the road.

Oh, I also did a slight Curves adjust overall to punch up the detail a LITTLE in the midground, just to add a bit of detail to the growth. There's not a whole lot of adjustment latitude to a screen-scraped image so I didn't hit it very hard. Anyway, really great M&N submission, I so want to walk into this scene!

UPDATE: Hmmmm, the repost looks a lot darker now that it's uploaded, I goofed somewhere, but it's enough to show the change I think!

Thanks for taking the time on this Paul, I appreciate it.
You know, this type of shot is just gonna look a bit dark..Especially in thumbnail.
I did not try any bracketed frames. Anyway, I personally like the headlights around the bend..
You know, they're coming "Home for Christmas"

There you go Howard, one image making two people happy in different ways. I agree, the brighter path does imply the "coming home aspect". Actually, I LIKE the darkness of the image... it's NIGHT, it's supposed to be calm, peaceful and dark. I just dig this image a LOT, three root beer toasts for you!

Seriously, the Merry Christmas version would make a superb card... time left to get 'em printed??