affinity photo The photo that won me the gold medal.

[stroiman]

I recently won the gold medal in the competition "Den Nationale" (The National) - the National Danish Championship arranged by SDF - Selskabet for Dansk Fotografi (Danish Photography Society)

The photo won in the Colour Prints category (There were 7 categories in all, but I only participated in 2)

Obviously the photo was edited in Affinity Photo. I have shared the before and after to give an idea about how I edited it, but generally I

• Removed a lot of distractions in the foreground.
• Removed some of the snow from some of the front trees
• Enhanced contrast (obviously)
• Enhance the colours of the leaves, and desaturate most of the background to make them stand out more.
• Enhanced the sense of mist in the background. This was accomplished primarily with blur and curves layers carefully masked with luminosity masks. I took advantage that I could place these in a group, and place a mask layer before these to control what goes into there filters/adjustments, something I couldn't have done in PS AFAIK.

Feel free to check out my other work
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stroiman.photography/
IG (Only pictures from Bornholm): https://www.instagram.com/stroiman.photography/
IG (My other pictures): https://www.instagram.com/stroiman.art/
Web site and shop: https://stroiman.photography

[s.auler]

A really great work of editing or better adjusting the photo. You achieved to create depth, for eyes to just sink into the mists in the background with a foreground, you want to grab with your hands.

Good job 🙂

[jmwellborn]

@stroiman  what a lovely photograph!!  No wonder it received the Gold Medal.  And what a testimony that a gifted photographer with a magical eye can create such beauty with Affinity Photo.

[debraspicher]

Seriously breathtaking. I've been listening to a lot of Skyrim soundtrack lately as the weather has started to change and this fits in this vibe perfectly.