Upper Kananaskis Lake

Hi Guy. Welcome to NPN. Your first post looks fine to me. Nice, well controlled light and beautiful reflections. Might have liked to see a bit more separation between the shore and the mountain reflections if that was possible, but this is minor. Very nice first post. Thanks for sharing here.

I like the cmposition and all of the elements here - but the dark area to the left is a little too dark.

Welcome Guy - nice first post - hope to see many more! Even though the light is a bit harsh (midday) this is a very pretty image. My only suggestion would be to open up the dark area on the left using the shadow/highlight tool in CS5, or just perhaps dodge that area some.

One further suggestion if I may - You will discover you will receive more comments if you go out of your way to make comments as well. A 5 to 1 give/receive ratio is generally well thought of, plus I have discovered that I learn much more by giving careful and well thought out critiques rather than just receiving them. If you don't feel real comfortable giving critiques at first, that's cool - just start out with "I like this" type comments until your confidence grows.

Ah.
Nix my second post. lol.

Good start, Guy.
One of those "wish I was there" shots.

Agree with previous posts, regarding opening up the shadows on the left.
Best done with hdr or bending a couple of exposures.

Guy,

Welcome to NPN and the critique galleries. Glad to have you here. Don't sweat about the computer thing, from what I can see here you did just fine getting this image prepped for the web and uploaded - so far so good!

Excellent "reflectionscape" (as I like to call them.) Great color and I love that perfect reflection. And despite a blank sky, I think you did very well to compose this overall. I think the darker reflection is perfectly appropriate (reality - many times folks end up making the top and bottom of equal light value.)

A few tips/suggestions. The first being that the horizon is slightly tilted. It's not far off, but if you view the far shoreline side to side, there is a slight cw rotation - minor. The second minor thing would be to tone down the highlight values just a little bit. Depending on your Photoshop skill level, the shore rocks, mountain peaks and small bit of forest on the right edge, could be "painted" down in exposure slightly, or you can use masks (a hundred ways to go about that kind of thing.)

Lastly, on a compositional note, and this is getting real picky... it would be nice if the reflected peaks didn't merge with the shoreline. In other words, taking a step forward or left (if you could) would give some space between the peaks and the rocks. No biggie, but something to consider next time you're composing a scene.

I'm less bothered by the heavy shadows on the left, but a little more detail would have been nice. Here's where folks shoot multiple exposures and blend them for increased dynamic range.

Lastly - sorry for the length here. I know it's your first post here, but darned if I can't figure out where the element of Man is. I think you could have just as easily posted this in the Landscape gallery as I see no "hand of man." No biggie either way.

Thanks for posting and we look forward to more images and for you participation in the forums and galleries.

Lon

Very nice crisp image, great clarity. Maybe a bit too much darkness on the left. I might have cropped to the left peak and used it as a bookend! Looks like a fantasticc location. I don't see the man element here - just a rel nice landscape.