And what I should have included in my statement though neglected to was that I wouldn’t want my viewpoint to sway you from your path. In the end, the way the image is presented is entirely up to you… it’s how you alone see the world. That uniqueness is what’s to be celebrated in my opinion.

Interesting comment about “over-structured”. In Color Efex, I used the “white something or other” filter to whiten and brighten the ice and remove some of the dinginess. When I selected the “high structure” preset in Silver Efex, the first thing I did was to back off on both structure and contrast. Maybe not quite enough.

I would hasten to add that the rather unique ice formations were what attracted me to that particular area.

Though I feel the image is well done technically and I like the composition, I don’t particularly like the amount of “High Structure” applied. That function is very similar to the “tonal contrast” function in Color Efex Pro and can be applied too aggressively. The snow on the rocks looks almost like cake frosting due to the high amount of detail and contrast presented… a bit unnatural.

Some Photoshop plugins remind me of the bass, treble and loudness controls on older stereo hifi equipment. How easy it was back in the 60’s and 70’s while listening to rock music at high levels, to turn the bass and treble controls all the way to the right and push the loudness button in. That sizzling treble and thumping bass were entrancing. The only problem was that one was so overwhelmed with the audio assault that all the subtle nuances were lost.