Wonderland + repost

I like how the verticals in the top half seem to anchor the riot of colours in this scene. Two points I suggest looking at :
1. Cropping some of the bottom, around 1/3 the way up to exclude criss cross foliage bottom centre.
2. Introducing some extra clarity or structure to the foreground for more definition, the red leaves seem to 'clump' together and going for more clarity in the front gives a better sense of visual depth as it recedes to softness in the background.

Beautiful mix of colors which helps simplifies the business of the many trees and bushes.  The green boarder at the top help frame this nicely.  The image feels a little warm on the white balance, but this may have been your intension.  If sun were back lighting the scene, I could see going that direction but with clouds, a cooler WB might actually help the reds pop and separate them from the greens of the trees.

Ed, you've done a great job capturing the subtle beauty of one of my favorite locations in Acadia. This tells a nice story about the environment of coastal Maine. When I last visited this spot four years ago, the Park Service had it roped off, if this is a recent photo, can I ask if that is still the case?

I think a slight crop off the bottom would help (but keep all of the pine in the lower left). I agree with Harry that the white balance here feels a tad too warm. And I might even consider slightly shifting the hue of the pines to more green and less yellow, although a cooler color balance might help that anyway.

A nice scene with the contrasting colors.  This might pop more if the trees were more green (like those in the left lower corner) and less yellow.  Agree with seeing how this would look with increased clarity.

I like this a lot, ED.  What an explosion of color.  This has a wonderful Christmas feel with the reds and greens.  I think the greens could be more green, but it's fine as presented.

Thanks so much for your input everyone; always appreciated. Here is a repost with some additional clarity and I pushed the WB down to 4500 K to address the warm tint. I could not find a crop of some of the bottom that looked right to me, but I have a couple of others comps which would address that suggestion which I will post next.

Ed: This was taken this past October. The area was not roped off by the NPS as of our visit although I can understand their reason for doing it. It is a sensitive area and some people just tromp through like a bull in a china shop.

Looks like a big improvement to me.  Nicely done!

I agree that the repost is a significant improvement. The reds were too strong in the original.

You did a great job in this hard to photograph location. Agree that there's not a satisfying crop from the bottom. The branches don't bother me anyway. Different strokes I guess, but I actually like the color balance of the original better.

Ed, The repost has a more natural look that I prefer here. At first I though it looked a bit flat compared to the first post but after viewing the larger version of it I like what you did. 

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI.

Ed,

Wonderful job isolating this section.  Haven't seen an image of this before and I'm really liking the combo of greens and reds here, and especially the green saplings popping are really appealing to me.

Comparing the two versions side in the larger views I can really see how the first was too warm. Honestly though, I think there's something in between the two versions that might be the sweet spot.  The color balance in the repost looks good, although I might be tempted to boost those reds back up a bit.  Adjusting the clarity helped I think.

Not sure if this is a viable crop, but I was thinking cropping up from the bottom to remove the brighter green branch coming in from the bottom.  But you can't come up too far otherwise you cut in the base of the tree on the left. If you crop just enough to cover the horizontal portion of that intruding branch at the bottom.... but that leaves an even more distracting piece that I suppose could be content-aware cloned away. But that might not be something you would want to do.

Lon

Ed I like the color balance of the repost much more than the original. I'm glad to hear that Wonderland wasn't permanently closed off by the NPS, this location is one of the true gems of Acadia in fall. On a foggy day, this place is truly a wonderland.

I think the cropping is tough on this one, I'm good with your re-post..