Pond

[armand]

I'm starting to like this pano thing, it's the first trip when I decided to use it for more than skylines.
I wonder if I should crop some of the left side.

[LoisWakeman]

I don't think so - the blue reflection echoes some of the other elements to the right (water and flowers), and acts as a natural lead-in for the eye that then wanders across exploring the more subtle parts of the image.

[BernardLanguillier]

Hum... I see the intend but the result doesn't work for me.

The far edge of the pond with what seems to be mini waterfalls is too close to the upper edge of the image. It detracts from the main subject and is shown either too much or too little.

If the edge is important, then such a wide pano might not be the best form factor.

Other than that, white balance seems a bit odd also.

I agree that the left part is also distracting.

Cheers,
Bernard

[armand]

Looking now on another computer the WB seems off a little more than I thought initially. If I crop the left I should be able to show a little more above the edge. One of the reasons I didn't do it is because there are more bright sunny spots above what I showed already (and I was following the rule of thirds ).
Either way this is helpful. I'll get to it when I'm home and see what I come up with.

[armand]

So I did some cropping but had very little more to show on the top, I actually expanded a bit on the bottom.
WB is warmer now, closer to how the light was at that time. Keep in mind the shadows are pushed a good amount here. At pixel level the sharpness is good on the bottom 3/4, gets out of focus towards the top.

[Richard Man]

I like the cropped version better

[armand]

In the final printed version I took care of some of the blown highlights and with this occasion I "discovered" Photoshop. I have it (got a decent price as academic) but I still don't have enough time to learn how to use it. I gave it another try as when I tried to clone few of the spots in Lightroom which was unbearably slow despite a decent computer. I first tried the content-aware fill with not so good results and then I just went to the clone stamp and I was amazed of how much faster (instant, no lag) it was and also the real time preview of how it would like is very very nice. I think I found the second best solution for blown highlights, first being not to blow them in the first place but it doesn't always happen.

Overall the print is somewhere around 44"x12" @ 440 dpi and while no masterpiece it's very nice, particularly when you want to see something pleasant and relax. It could probably be printed at twice the dimensions without significant loss in quality and 3-4 times bigger if you are not going to look from 1 feet away.

[louoates]

I like your last version much better for both composition and color. You could also make several more severe crops focusing on the larger lily pads and have just as pleasing results.

[armand]

You are probably right. Cropping the right 1/3 and maybe a little on the left would make you focus even more on the more interesting parts of the photo. I guess I didn't do it so far is because it feels like killing my creation  . Either way the reflections on the right are nice when printed so it doesn't feel that much unbalanced.