Eons +2 Alts

Superb water texture, and the composition works very well for me. The tones of the rocks and water are very similar though, and I wonder if making the rocks darker with the water remaining light would add to the drama? (I don't know what the original colors are, but there may be a mask hiding in the channels that would let you separate the rocks and the water easily?)

Beautiful view of the falls. I love the metallic look to the rock. The B&W interpretation is working really well.

Well done, Lon.  Lovely composition, perfect shutter speed, and wonderful texture in the rocks.  My only concern, and I really don't know that it's a concern because I'm looking at this on my uncalibrated work monitor, is the shadows might could be opened up just a "wee" bit.  Very little actually.  I'll check this out again when I get home this evening to see if that's actually a valid comment.

Lon, I think this would be gorgeous as a metallic print; the water and rocks already have that metallic quality!  Well done.

Personally I am more attracted to the upper cascade than the falls. But those cascades are chopped off. I would really like to see them fully exposed by having space above them. As things stand they are taking attention from the falls so I would crop just above the top right dark rock in the falls, which would also serve the purpose of not making the cascade look incomplete. 

I like the simplicity of the falls. Their uninterrupted straight borders framed by rocks. The glistening rocks look appealing. I agree with the idea of trying to raise the shadows in the rocks but I'm not sure how that would look. 

I love this view Lon.  The water exposure is spot on for me and I love the textures and details in the rocks.  The metallic look is the ultimate goal in B&W IMHO.
 

This looks great to me, Lon! The tonal range and luminosity are excellent! The detail is superb.

Just a note about this spot: Just above the top of the image there are dry rocks and bushes. Lon's framing works well, in my opinion. We were fortunate to have some cloud cover that softened the light.

No nits or suggestions, here. Well done, sir!
--P

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.  Here are 2 different views of the falls. One a little wider vertical with a little more up top.  As Preston mentions, the top of the falls is problematic and there isn't really a clean cut anywhere.  The horizontal version shows the complete upper area. I also included color for John's comments regarding trying to separate the rock and water.  Not a lot to pull from in terms of masking. My approach was simply more burning, utilizing the B&W/Luminosity layer as well as TK's original Triple Plays.

The repost of the b&w vertical is actually a blend of 2 images with slightly different shutter speeds.  As will often happen, the longer the shutter speed, the less detail and more likely to blow out some areas.  So I blended 2 images to mitigate issues with detail and blown highlights in the water.

Feedback is so, so valuable in developing images, so thank you so much for the observations and suggestions!

Lon

ps. Wider view showing another channel.  Preston's intimate image here is still not included, it's off frame to the right, for reference

Color version to show the top of the cascades as well as for showing color variation.

Thanks for looking!

The second B&W for me!!!!  Most definitely. To my eye, that absolutely nails it. 

I like them all for different reasons. Any chance of seeing the color version is b&w?
 

The second B&W for me!!!!  Most definitely. To my eye, that absolutely nails it. 

Absolutely! While I really like the original image, the second B&W carries the day for me! Excellent, sir!
--P

May I thread stomp and post a couple of images?

Thanks for the comments folks!

John, by all means, please feel free to stomp all you want!  The interaction is great and we all can learn some things!

Thanks!

(Please click on the image to view on a dark background.) Here's a quick and dirty edit to show what I was trying to say with words. (And by quick, I mean about 5 minutes. I'm not ultra-fast at editing, and with more time it could certainly be improved, but hopefully it gets the idea across.) ...more info in the next post.

...and here's the mask that I was hoping was hiding in one of the channels; it allowed me to apply separate curves to the water and rock. I used the b channel of lab to build it, and that helped make it quick and simple. (I actually timed making this, and it was a little over 2 1/2 of those 5.)  If that doesn't make sense to some, we could get a thread going in the Digital Imaging Forum.

Now, as to whether you would actually want to make a BW like the above post, that's a bigger question. 

 

Outstanding, intimate water scene, Lon. I for one, prefer the silky water and composition in the first. Exposure is spot on revealing wonderful texture in the water. Processing looks great. No nits.
 

John,

Thanks so much for taking the time to show what you were trying to describe. Actually I pretty much knew what you were describing, although honestly, not to the degree of your posted example.  Granted, the post in this thread is grossly darker than when you actually click on the image. It's also not a fair start when one is working from a low rez screenshot, so that must be considered.

Thank you for the mask image as well.  I have actually been using a LAB mode layer quite a bit in my workflow, but not for actually creating masks.  thanks for the tip! I'll have to try it out.

Understanding the limitations and how NPN is displaying images in comments, for me, I think the tones of the rock are too dark.  Clearly you've accomplished separating the water from the rock. for me, it's a little too far.

I'm wondering... this may be a good sample image to offer up as a "Processing challenge."  I think we toyed around with this before. Wondering if anyone would be interested.  You have someone post a reasonably sized image and challenge folks to do their best.  Maybe I'll post this in the discussion forum.

Thanks John and everyone for your comments and suggestions!

Lon

Good deal Lon; points taken. (My monitor was due for recalibration this morning, and unfortunately I agree my edit is much darker; sorry about that. No biggie, it was mostly about the mask anyway.) I think a Processing Challenge image would be fun. By discussion forum, do you mean the Landscape Photo.?