Hi. I would really appreciate some critique on this image of a winter sunrise.  There was snow on the ground and the light was superb. I havent managed to catch the light but I just wondered if the photo was too mundane or whether I could improve the processing in any way. I have already tindered with it a tiny bit in NiK's color efex. Any comments would be gratefully received.

Hello Penny,

very difficult shot against the sun ...

I've tried a few things, but I haven't come up with an acceptable solution because the colors quickly break off during editing and bright artifacts form - the dynamic range is simply not high enough for deep editing - at least for me.

I can only recommend that you go back to RAW development, as it's probably easier to improve things there.

And I would crop the image differently - you can see here:

Greetings

Udo

Hello Penny

Thank you for sharing this beautiful, atmospheric photo with us. I love shooting trees in fog myself. I have enhanced your photo a little in terms of colour, light and definition. You might want to crop the left side a little to remove the branches on the edge and then perhaps the top edge, although Udo has given you some advice too.

Good light, Elizabeth

Thank you very much for your time and comments Udo and Elizabeth. I will go back to the drawing board

Hello, Penny

Welcome to our forum. I like images like this one. I would like to share some insights on it. The atmosphere is good. I like the mood. Then there are a few things to mention. First, let's talk about the sun. The winter sun to me looks quite too bright and harsh compared to the whole of the image. I would advice to try to increase the contrast of the Image except the sun. There might be a couple of ways to do this. You might use Photoshop and camera raw for example. You could to this with adding masks and subtracting them. I would select the sun and then invest the selection. Then you could either use dehase plus ten or you can increase the contrast. You should be subtle while doing this. I think your image needs balance in terms of the bright and muted areas. The trees look to insignificant. They could be defined a bit more. I wish you good light. Cicek...

Thank you so much Cicek - thats very helpful