Yellower Barn

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Last Thursday I posted a picture of this barn. Click here to check it out.
I also posted it at some internet photography forums for critiques. There were three. One group found the framing to be overpowering and glum. They also tended to find the yellow lettering distracting. A second group thought that the overall vibrancy of the image was dull. But the third critique, from just one astute reviewer noticed a halo around the buildings to the right into the sky which led right up the top of the barn roof and around it's peak. the first two were simple to attack, and you can see the brighter image and the altered borders easily.

It was that last crticism which worried me. I hadn't printed the image yet, but upon close examination I realized that I'd made a fatal mistake. In balancing the sky line I did what's called masking of an adjustment layer. Simply put I copied the entire image, darkened and adjusted its contrast to bring out the sky - then I wiped away the darkened area over everything but the sky. It's kind of like compositing two images. Well anyway, for those of you using Photoshop, I made an error which I've made before, and it's simple to commit. I wiped away the darkened image with a brush set to dissolve! Yipes.... That's like using a VERY bristly brush to make the erasure... When I blew up the offending areas in the earlier image I could see the scrapings which appeared as a glow on the smaller image posted here on Thursday. Be careful... if this can happen to me a number of times, it's worth checking carefully.

At any rate, it took me a lot of time this afternoon to clean up the orignal, since the error happened early on in my enhancement process of the image... and so much needed to be redone. Hope you'll appreciate it. I wouldn't have bothered, but I like this image enough that I hope that the Landis Valley Museum where the barn lives, will accept a large print so they can include it in their charity auction toward the end of April. We'll see if they're interested.