The rising sun at Willow Springs Lake  spotlights a spit of forested land jutting into the lake through the smoke from a close prescribed burn (deliberately set and controlled forest fire).

I'm looking for ways to improve the impact of the photo without losing the the misty/hazy/dreamy/peaceful feeling.

ISO 200, f/13, 1/100 sec, 35mm (Nikon 16-35mm lens)

Shot in RAW and imported into ACR as Camera Neutral. Changed to Camera Standard ran auto edit and decreased exposure to 1.55.

In Photoshop I increased Saturation 8 and Brightness 9.

Your suggestions and advice will be appreciated.

Thank you, Mark

Hi Mark welcome. I do think your fine image needs more impact and punch, but to add that you will have to fall back on some of the misty look in my view. This is what I came up with - Small crop off the top and left side - Nik Tools Clear View a bit like dehaze but better. - Nik Tools Tonal Contrast for that impact. - Some dodge work on the trees and refection. - Last Topaz AI sharpen with noise reduction. Thank you for sharing...

Hello Mark,

Thank you for submitting your photo to this forum.

My proposal slightly changes the frame by cutting off the top and bottom of the photos by about 1.5 cm. Now it is more panoramic. Moreover, in PSCC2024 and Camera Raw I added colors, leaving a mystical, hazy image. I slightly emphasized the lines of light in the background.

Regards

Slawomir Kowalczyk - SC.

Dear Mark,

Your photo reminds me of a morning in 2006, when I travelled to Canada and was invited to a cottage countryside north from Toronto. I got up very early because of the 6 hours time difference, before sunrise, at a sea with dusk. Total silence is the most present in my memories, almost disconcerting to hear really nothing.

It's a beautiful, tranquil scene, little to improve. Like Slawomir, I would also go for a more panoramic format, I cropped a 16:10, left a bit more space on top than on the bottom of the reflection. The magic at sunride is the transition from cold blue to warm light, which falls a bit short in your take on colors. 

Haze can be added by the "de-haze" function in Lightroom or Adobe RAW, just pull the slider left, not right. I did that with a copied layer and maske it off your foreground. 

The colors I altered with "Brilliance / Warmth" in NIK / Google Color Efex, plus a 3DLUT called "Mystic Wood". The later flattens deeptones a bit and pulls blues in the direction of purple slightly - which matches yellow better than pure blue. 

All together it's minor changes, but maybe the increase of mood you were looking for:

Best regards,

Mike

David, Slawomir, and Mike,

Thank you very much for all your input. You have each given me useful suggestions and I will work on this photo with those in mind. Hopefully you'll see the result in the not too distant future.

Thanks again,

Mark