Treasure Falls

I just got back from a trip to Pagosa Springs. I snowshoed into Treasure Falls in a snow storm. While I was there, I was wishing for some blue sky, but you can't have everything. I had to use the patch and healing brush tools to remove some water drops that had accumulated on my lens, otherwise I just made some basic adjustments in Lightroom. Comments?

The light is pretty flat, which doesn't really show this to its best advantage.

Certainly looks cold! Kudos for making the hike up to the falls. I agree with John - the light is a bit flat. And, I'd think about cropping some off the RHS and the bottom. Maybe try to brighten it up a bit if you can without blowing out the highlights.

Yeah! Like I said, it was snowing, so the light was pretty flat. I would have liked to make it up there again after the storm cleared, but I didn't have the time. Jamie, I tried brightening it a bit, but I lost what little color I had in the sky. Thanks for the feedback guys.

Too bad you couldn't find time to visit with a little better light, but I think this could be improved a bit if you mask out the sky and work exclusively on the landscape portion with some brightness/contrast/saturation adustments. I see the water is starting to flow up at the top of the falls. Looks like the melting process has begun.

Yeah! I noticed the falls weren't quite as frozen as they were when you were there. I might try a quick mask on the sky and see what happens. It's worth a shot. Thanks Guy.

OK. I tried masking the sky, but I ended up with some strange outline effects around the trees against the sky. I played around with levels a bit, adjusted the contrast and saturation, and cropped the image. I'm still not sure it works, but I think it's better than it was.

Nice scene, Jim! I think the repost is an improvement, but i kinda prefer the snow color/brightness of the original. The light wasnt greta for this broad view, because of the surrounding sky and rock, but it might have been perfect for a close up of the falls, since the blue color in the ice is definitely showing.

I agree about the color. I especially like the bluish color in the original. I do have a couple tighter shots without the sky, maybe I'll try working one of those. Thanks.