Lewis Ginter Reflections Photo

Photographer’s Note

This lake is found in the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia. It’s the largest lake in the park as well. I searched and searched to find the name of the lake but I had no luck. It probably was on the map they hand out to everyone when you pay your ticket that I promptly lost when I got home. Speaking of admission its $10 to get inside and worth every penny.

This panorama was made from 5 separate images. This was probably the most work I ever did on a panorama after running through stitching software. I tried both AutoStitch as well as the one built-in to Photoshop and preferred the one out of Photoshop as the less messed up of the two. I was originally planning on a 2100 pixel wide panorama but I had compression issues in the sky with pixilation occurring so I had to make the high-res version much smaller to avoid that. I had all sorts of cloning to do to fix the edges where they were stuck together as well as a lot of dodging and burning to get the exposure right as well as a lot of sharpening over certain areas and some tweaking with levels and colors. If anything slipped by me please forgive me but you all will never appreciate how far this came from the original.

Please click on the image for the hi-res version!

quantabeh, carper, Emile, sabyasachi1212, feather, ramesh_lalwani, john_c, PixelTerror, jhm, plimrn, Tue, alford, Didi, Steft has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

CliffW (2310) 2007-07-15 7:38

I've never tried to stitch a photo. After reading your explanation, I'm not sure I want to. It sounds painful!

The results are good though. The lake's like a mirror and I can't detect any jags where the sections meet at all.

quantabeh (5203) 2007-07-15 7:40

Hey Steve, wow, nice well saturated colors, and you can almost feel the summer heat coming from it. I love the reflections you have managed to expose so well. ( I guess if you had my Texas luck, you could have captured some clouds over the lake..hehe)

nice one.
Behrang

trinko (2940) 2007-07-15 7:51

nice colors good focus interesting subject nice reflections.

Cormac (26449) 2007-07-15 8:16

Wow Stephen, this gives an overwhelming sense of green, and a very lush feel. I like the way the foliage has surrounded and framed the lake. Great job with the stitch too, because it is almost unnoticable. Well done!

carper (64804) 2007-07-15 9:37

Looks a nice fish water to me Stephen,
very good LP photo, the composition is good and the reflection is nice, good photojob here.
gr. jaap

Emile (19973) 2007-07-15 12:27

Hola Stephen.
Good work with the use of adding (stitching) several shots together, impossible to see were the stitches were done. Nice landscape captured with beautiful colors and excellent composition. Your POV is very good and the reflection is great. Very good details in your large version.
Well done. TFS.
Best regards.

sabyasachi1212 (19546) 2007-07-15 20:49

Hi Stephen,
Beautiful landscape, excellent stitch on this one. Almost impossible to detect any glitches.
With Greetings from India
Sabyasachi

PJE (19437) 2007-07-16 0:22

Hello Stephen. Very nice capture and panorama shot here. The colors are very vibrant here and the quality of this shot is outstanding. Thanks for sharing..

Must by my eyes need some sleep.. I could swear this lake is on a small hill.. seems a little slope down on the right..Am I right?

He He..

feather (49860) 2007-07-16 1:28

This is a pretty image with beautiful reflections. I like the way you have composed it almost totally surrounded by greenery. The detail in the large version is fantastic.
Kath

jemaflor (39357) 2007-07-16 3:06

Hi Stephen,
Well framed, so lovely reflections on water, well flowers in the corner, well taken and great effect in large panorama.

john_c (24635) 2007-07-16 7:45

Hi Stephen,
A most impressive stitch job. The tones and hues are rich and almost springlike, with only a little yellow emerging in some of the grass to give a hint of summer. The framing and POV are ideal, and I particularly like the thin ridge of grass in the foreground. Very fine work, Stephen. I must try stitching one day...
John

PixelTerror (86088) 2007-07-16 8:21

Hi steve,
A well assembles panorama from a place that has very strong greens to show in addition to the nice reflections, it seems to be leaning to the right but this could well be just an effect because the house looks straight.
Have a nice day JY

poulinp (4464) 2007-07-16 10:24

Good color settings, and a good idea to make this one in panoramic format. Maybe it just miss a master element to really catch my eye, but this is beautiful.

jhm (82487) 2007-07-17 4:09

Hello Stephen,

Nice stitching work here, I have to learn these technic.
Very well panorama view about the lake with in background the houses of the village.
Also your LV is very well of colours and quality.
Thanks for sharing.

Have a nice day,
John.

plimrn (19624) 2007-07-17 9:00

Hi Steve,
I liked this regular sized shot with the reflections, purple flowers and clouds; however, I KNEW even before I read you note that you would nhave a hi-res version which is a gadzillion times better than the PP. It has such depth, i feel like I could just fall into the picture!! Just Wonderful!! HLJ, Pat

Tue (25608) 2007-07-20 11:50

Hej Stephen,
A beautiful panorama shot of the lake. The colours are wonderful and so attractive. I love the reflections too. The inclusion of the grass in the bottom of the shot is nice too. Well done!
Regards,
Lars

alford (3897) 2007-07-22 0:48

Hello Stephen. Your hard work and patience paid off...this is a wonderful panorama of the lake. I love the reflections and the way you added the various plants as foreground. Colors are lively, well composed and sharpness is very good! rgds.

fayeulle (26543) 2007-07-28 12:13

Hi, my friend Stephen
I like this shot, but there is some oversharpening process which gave an halo around the dark areas of this shot
Cheers
JP

Didi (36084) 2007-07-28 12:28

Hi Stephen
Very nice reflections surrounded by greens, the stitch is ok, but I suggest you to use the same exposure parameters for the 5 pictures.
Cheers.

batalay (20920) 2007-07-29 10:08

Hello Stephen,

What a superb panoramic image of the botanical garden in Richmond. I remember seeing it some years ago, but your photo creates a virtually surrealistic image. The surface of the water is pristine and unperturbed -- a perfect mirror! The colors, perspective and resolution are all impecably handled. The high resolution version brings out the details, especially the purple flowers on the right, something that the small version simply suggests.

Warm regards,
Bulent

maphoto (8076) 2007-07-29 14:19

Good work Stephen and a beautiful place, excellent contrast between the green and the blue sky and water. I would for sure appreciate a few weeks for rest there !

coco (27848) 2007-07-31 13:20

Hi Stephen.

It looks a succesful work and this landscape is fantastic.
The composition, the reflections and how you mixed all five photos.

Well done.

Steft (5962) 2007-08-14 15:16

Hi Stephen,
Wonderful panorama shot with beautiful colours and light. The reflection is perfect and I like the little house in the middle. You did some good stitchingwork here.
Stef

capthaddock (28640) 2007-08-31 6:54

Excellent stitch Stephen, and a perfect little summer scene, without the typical hazy white Virginia summer skies.