The Spout and The Sunstar

Trevor and I happened across this ridiculously cool little spout on Mount Baker and I couldn't not just take up residence on the spot and work it to death. The exposure was a bastard to get right, and I had lots of problems with my filters (dust and scratches showed up all too well) so this one has been run through the car wash liberally, but I'm pretty satisfied with the result. Would like input - please don't hold back. Thanks.

Awesome composition and idea, great find. I like this one a lot. I can see why the exposure was a pain though, and the shadows do look a bit plugged. My mind normally expects shadowed water to have a bit of a bluish cast, but I agree with Jesse that the warm light above makes the color contrast a little extreme. One tiny nit, I would have preferred that the bottom border didn't cut of the splash of water. This must be where Trevor's "Newly Found Clarity" was taken?

Yeah, I keep tinkering with the white balance to see if I can get something that looks warm enough all over, but it generally ends up looking too unnatural if I bump the blues down too much.

If you want to just target the water, you can move the color in lab and restrict it to the blue using Blend If. I can post an example if you would like.

Pretty neat. At first I didn't like the heavy blue cast in the water, but artistically, the colors work well together.

This is a really wonderful image. Just to not pick ( like I never do these things myself)... I'd crop out the creeper stem in the lower right. But this is a winner in my book.
JG

John, thanks but no thanks - I know my way around Photoshop. I may scratch this particular take and go again from a clean slate but right now I think I've exhausted this particular incarnation. My feeling is the blue of the water can't be reduced too much because it compliments the golds in the sky and the rocks to the right, and if that balance is disturbed then the picture loses some of its impact. I'll probably post a rework on ESS in a few days.

This is great. The spout part of the image is nice and intimate, and i like the blue in the water with the hint of gold from the sun. That the rest of the image takes you out and far away on the sea of clouds is a brilliant contrast to closeness and detail of the spout. Nice work.

Bryan,
This is truely striking. I really don't have any nits at all. I usually don't go for the sun star but here it really works!

Sweet image, Bryan. The blue in the water looks fine to me. It's in shade, so it makes sense; it's also similar in color to the near part of the cloud deck, which keeps it from looking out of place. The slices of warm light on the foreground and clouds balance out the cool hues nicely anyway.

This is really tough to judge since I'm viewing on a laptop, but for what it's worth, the shadows under the spout appear just a little muddy - maybe less shadow/highlight tool if that's what was used, or selectively boost the contrast in that area. Minor nit on a solid image.