Took another Photo yesterday. I don't think it is too bad (interesting subject) The sky is a bit bright though.
I have edited it a little with extra detail, normalization, colour enhance. I tried to add a blue sky but it didn't look right.
Perhaps it doesn't matter, I took the photo for the tree trunk - unfortunately I got another tree that I was standing under at the same time.


cropped original
files/1831_P4240028cropped.JPG

As your intention was to capture the tree-trunk, I'd start by cropping the picture to more of that, then there is less sky to worry about.

Then I'd lighten the whole thing so that the tree-trunk isn't so dark in comparison to the sky you have left - but I'd leave the distracting background darker:



Now I don't know if that's altered the colours too much, but that's up to you to decide.

Kevin

excellent photo, SallyAnne!
and excellent photo-manipulation, Kevin!
both awesome images...

Thank you dinasset.
I like that paynekj. Looks great!

.-..I couldn't resist to "manipulate" it myself


except for the crop, it's in Kevin's direction

Thought you'd have a go dinasset. Nice one

same as previous + sky (you wanted it, Sally, here it is...doesn't look bad to me)

Very impressive guys... that is a very interesting tree.

My attempt using Saul Goode luminosity masks.
Duplicated twice - top layer "LL" mask then Curves to darken the sky.
Second layer "D" mask then curves to brighten the tree trunk.
I've left the picture uncropped - I couldn't decide how best to crop it.

david.

Thanks for the cropped original

This time I used Photivo to get the highlights down and the midtones brighter
I also used the detail curve to sharpen up the redder areas - which should be just the trunk, and increased the colour vibrance and a slight after gamma curve adjustment

This left the bottom half of the tree good, but the top half was lacking contrast so...

In GIMP I duplicated the layer and increased the contrast, then used a layer mask to only allow the upper branches to show.

Finally I duplicated the distracting background area and reduced the saturation to hide that orange barrier - again using a layer mask to control which bits show.

End result:


Kevin

Thank you all
I like to see all the different out comes from one photo. Amazing what we can all come up with.

Hope you don't mind a little play instead Sallyanne; since I cheated (Impressionist and FotoSketcher combo), just linking.

http://imageshack.com/a/img908/673/yEZxLx.jpg

excellent "painting" Lyle...

I prefer to bring the color up and not much worry about the details of top half.

Was waiting to see what you came up with. Nice.

I like yours too Okyl

I know I'm reviving old threads, but I'm not only new to the forum, I'm new to learning this craft. I fell in love with this tree, and had to give it a go.

"Necrobumping" is not a sin here at GimpChat.
In many other forums (especially "trending" and contentious forums), anything more than a day old is considered irrelevant and bumping it is frowned upon. People only necro-bump to carry on battles and it gets very boring for others.

But GimpChat is neither "trending" nor contentious - quite the opposite; and there are some real gems hidden away amongst the older threads. (Same applies to a some extent on the other Gimp forums.)
So, if you find something interesting and think it may be of interest to others or just want to show off your results, by all means bump. If people find it interesting, they will comment; if not, they just ignore it.
If you hang around here long enough, you will eventually get a flavour of what people do find interesting and what not so.

And sometimes, as we've seen several times recently, bumped-up old threads start off a whole new discussion and even lead to new techniques and new scripts being written.

Thank you. I'll be digging through threads trying to learn things, and there's no telling just what all I might 'exhume'.

Sallyanne - I am amazed at the local wildlife in your area



... koalas, tree kangaroos and goannas!