The Swirl + rp

This is very nice. The water motion and texture looks fantastic! The colors are nice as well and the only thing I kind of wish for is a bit more room around the top right hand rock, but who knows what else was over there so this was probably the best choice I bet. Doing that might have centered the big rock a bit too much as well. Love that water!!

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI.

You sure did have fun with the river, Preston.  I really like your ss choice here and the big V of moving water just below the step.  The larger view is notably warmer and more contrasty.

Excellent image of the flowing Merced, Preston. I like all the lines in the river below the rocks. Exposure is spot on. 

Preston, another great river scene! I love the green in that eddy and the shutter speed looks great to me. My only nit is that the highlights in the lower left and across the whole image upstream of the eddy look very gray to me. I think they need more brightness.

Another real nice layered river flow. The processing looks on the money to me. Very nicely done. 

Preston,

The swirl looks great - I would almost call it like a caldera; boiling up in the middle.  The SS and flow of the water above helps tell the story of what's creating the swirl and pattern in the water.

What I can't decide on is the partial wave in the LLC.  I like the texture and flow of this element, but just not sure it really adds to the main subject.  I'm wondering what cropping that out would do?  I think if there was more flow and texture in the bottom I might not feel that way - but then it might detract even more from the swirl and action above.

My other comment is about the color/saturation.  Not sure if it's just me, but the green/yellow seems to pop up in the streaking water, and almost looks noisy too.  Not sure how to describe it.  Maybe it's sharpening? Drop me an email if you want.

Lon

I like the way the swirl is framed by the smooth darker water.  Perhaps another interesting approach would be to do a blended exposure where you actually have a little more definition of the splash around the outside of the swirl with everything else being smooth other than the rock of course.  I thought about this after reading Lon's comment on his moving water photograph.

Nice medley of color and shutter speed.  I think cropping the bottom to remove the whiter water in the LLC would also help give more of a flow horizontally.

Thanks for your comments, everyone!

Here is a tweaked version. I liked the crop suggestion, so I did that. Second, I reduced the yellow vibrance. Third, I used Neat Image to remove noise to smooth things a bit, and finally, dodged the rocks just a bit.

I am interested in what you think. Thanks,
--P

I like the contrasting textures in the water.  I like the crop in the repost, but prefer the Vibrance of the original - maybe somewhere in between would be best.

Preston,

Wow, the repost works very well - for me.  I think each suggestion and tweak you made improved the image.  And even though you cropped the flowing texture in the LLC, what remains now is really a more prominent swale of a wave along the bottom. I like! Color and saturation are always a personal choice, and I know I've been struggling with this lately - which means I'm also unsure about commenting on said topic. ;-)  

Sure looks good to me though.  Thanks for taking the time to rework and repost.

Lon

I prefer the original post. I think the bottom area provides more layering in a nice repeating pattern and the original color has more pop, but totally in a good way. 

Nice rework, Preston. This repost is truly different than the original. I think the composition is definitely stronger in the repost. The color changes are interesting in that there is less of it, the image is closer to a b&w. I like the slightly darker tonality of the repost but the greens and yellows in that fast water next to the rock are really marvelous. It's a difficult choice but I think the colors in the original were better. 

Preston, this is a very well crafted image.  1/4 second is my benchmark for moving water like this.  I like the rapids with the tea colored surroundings.  I agree that a slightly wider angle could work well.