Fairy Falls

Looks great, Daniel. Nice balanced exposure throughout. Only distracting thing for me is that small green band in the lower left (something blowing in the breeze, I suppose).

Plenty here to keep my eyes searching around. I particularly like how the falls are bordered by the greenery from top to bottom. I do see a small green spot in the LLC, flare maybe?

Other than the out of focus leaf in the llc, very good job on the composite. The lighting has a natural flow.

Well done Daniel and the detail in the larger photo is great. My only nit would also be the (flare)? on the log in the bottom left.

Bruce

Great comp and lovely greens and waterfall. I really like the sunstar here, works well with the overall image.

Damn fine shot. Lovely detail.

Excellent capture Daniel. I really like the textures on the water.

Your processing has worked really well Daniel. There's excellent detail throughout the shot and nice water movement. The sunstar looks great too.

Gary.

Hey Daniel,
Very cool with the sunstar! I may have preferred a bit more room above star....but it may introduce other unwanted elements. Love the contrast and lushness of the greens!

Daniel,

Second image this week with an excellent and effective use of the sunstar. Great processing to go along with it. Congrats on a successfully crafted image. No nits from me, this is quite lovely and striking.

Lon

oh, agree about that fuzzy green thing over the log at the bottom. Not sure if that's growing there and moving because of the water or airflow close to the falls? Weird.

Funny that I didn't even notice the fuzzy green thing til pointed out to me. Anyway, I think it was a bit of greenery blowing in the wind created by the falls themselves. It can be cloned out. Thanks.
Dan

Awesome greens and a nicely composed image. Nice processing, too.

Just superb Daniel.
Top capture. I quite agree that hand composites seem to work better.

Great shot Daniel. I like the sun stars. I also prefer the hand blending techniques. I guess I am just a control freak but I like to make the decisions.

Hi Daniel,
Great processing, awesome detail all around. Care to share some technique on "how-to" about the foliage? This is really great.

Helio - The foliage in our rainforest pretty much "speaks for itself" The only trick is to have a day with minimal wind (not so common in the Columbia Gorge) The f22 is for the sunstar, but it makes for a pretty easy choice of focus for dof and any softness from diffraction seems pretty minimal. The processing for the green is in Lightroom; I added ~10% saturation to the green and pushed the hue ~5% toward blue. The masking and compositing I do in Picture Window Pro ( I like it better than Photoshop) and then apply a slight curve for increased contrast and sharpen with Nik. Hope that helps
Dan

Super image Daniel - just beautiful. I too have a hard time resisting the chance for capturing a sunstar. I also agree with you that manual blending is the way to go over automated HDR - easier to control and more natural. The only change I would suggest is to clone out the blurred fern at the bottom and clone a little detail into the small bright white spot at the top of the log. Overall, excellent image!