A while ago I posted this image I took at Kootenai Creek.

Well, now I’ve spent a little bit of time in Photoshop doing some “pruning”, local color corrections, dodging/burning, and cropping.  Now it looks like this:

And when I say “a little bit of time in Photoshop,” I mean about 8 hours. :)  The hard part was rebuilding the rock where the branch overlapped and making it look believable.  How’d I do? 

This is the image I printed and matted the other day.  It was also the image that was being critiqued.  The teacher who critiqued it seemed to dislike the hard, high contrast light I shot it in.  She said in a perfect world I would have shot it under softer light, like on a cloudy day or when the rock was under shade.  I totally disagree, of course.  If this was a image of a nice, peacefully flowing river, then, yeah, I agree, but this isn’t that type of river.  This was a violent and turbulent stream rushing down the side of the mountain.  The harsh light accentuates that turbulent and chaotic feeling.  I think the light was perfect for the shot I was trying to get.  And since I took the picture, my opinion is the only one that really counts, right? :) 

Anyway, want to buy it?  All it needs is a frame.