Overlook

Diving I-24 across Tennessee has some nice scenery.  Especially the stretch from south of Nashville to Chattanooga.   The high point (literally) is Monteagle, where the highway crosses a mountain, which might not technically be a mountain, but certainly acts like a mountain!

Anyway, there's a rest area at the west side of the "mountain", and ont the back edge of the westbound stop, there's this very nice view.  This is a simple iPhone shot, but significantly tweaked on my computer.  So similar to last week, I thought I's post the original with the final, and try to remember the process.  Everything is in Photoshop Elements unless noted.

Original:

1. Adjust levels
2. crop to 4x6 aspect ratio
3. Adjust hue/saturation.  I think I boosted red and yellow, and decreased magenta (there was a bit of "purple fringing" in the trees.
4. resize to 1024 px on long side
5. Apply Unsharp mask.  My default is amount 48%, radius 0.6px, threshold 0
6. Create a new layer for effects
7. Apply Topaz - Impression filter. I actually tried several of the presets, adding a unique layer for each.  Then I could compare, by switching layers on and off.  I settled on "Oil Glaze"
8. Add texture filter.