Last Splash Of Color

Last weekend, I shuttled a group of kids to Little Grassy Lake for a church youth retreat.  Of course, I had to take a little time to wander the grounds, and take a few pictures (here and here). Same as I did last year.   So, this year we got to the camp just a few minutes before a storm was to blow through.  The light was pretty even and flat, no harsh shadows (even though it was mid-day).  So I hustled to grab a few shots before the storm.

Anyway, the image above turned out reasonably OK, but not until there was a LOT of tweaking.  Below is the original SOOC (stright-out-of-camera) version:

So, what did I do?  Well, I don't usually track my workflow real carefully, but this is close:

1. Try to fix the exposure:  Duplicate layer, set blend to multiply, drop opacity until it looks optimum.  This is a cool tool, think I learned it from a Scott Kelby book.  
2. Flatten layers
3. Fine tune levels.
4. Crop to 4x6 aspect ratio.  Just because I generally prefer 4x6, unless there's a reason not to...
5. Create a new layer for effects
6. Apply Topaz - Impression filter.  I'm pretty confident I used the "Edward Hopper I" preset.
7. Apply Topaz - Simplify filter.  I used the BuzSim preset, but tweaked the Simplify function way down, (<0 .10="" li="" nbsp="">
8. Adjust colors.  I selectively dropped Reds (to de-emphasize the dead leaves) and boosted the yellow a little, to make those leaves "pop"
9. Resize for publishing (I usually use 1024 px on the wide side for 365project.org).
10. Flatten and save.  

Sounds like a lot, but not really.  Maybe 10 - 15 minutes of time.  I'll spend that much easily dialing in a B&W conversion.