Edit Me An Image #45 - Tahquamenon Falls

About this Photo- I took a bunch of photos here a couple of days ago, while wandering about in the upper peninsula of Michigan. It is the second widest waterfall in the US; only Niagara is wider. The trail to the "good viewpoint" was being rebuilt so a quirky alternate viewpoint was all that was available and I didn't have a satisfactory angle to do much of anything. Let's see if you can help me out. (Note: parts of the waterfall are really tones of brown due to the high tannin content in the river that feeds it but if that seems bothersome feel free to change it).

General rules:
A previous round winner presents a busy or just not so interesting image, having at least some potential for different crops or visions.
Anyone (except author of original image) can edit the presented image, up to three distinct edits in separate posts are permitted.
All edits must be based on original image, not on another people's edits (of course borrowing ideas would not be a problem).
Short explanations about your editing intentions and/or techniques are encouraged, but not required.

Once the deadline for images has been reached, no new image versions will be accepted. Questions and (polite) discussions of techniques are welcome, so that we can learn from one another how certain edits were achieved.
The edited version gathering most likes wins and its author will start next round, unless they would prefer to pass the torch to someone else.
On the closing day for voting, if there is a draw in the number of likes for two or more edits, then the person that posted the original image will decide the winner from the the photos receiving the most votes.

Editing rules:
All "normal" adjustments (brightness, colors, curves etc) are permitted (both local and global ones).
All geometric adjustments (perspective, cropping etc) are permitted.
Artistic effects (brushes, textures etc) are allowed.
No additions or replacements may be made to the main subject matter of the image; non-essential objects may be removed. Sky replacements are OK unless the sky is the main subject..
Generative AI must not be used. Generative remove is OK.

Timing:
Get your images posted by October 21, then there will be an extra day after that just for voting.

Link to Dropbox file.www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/51m96brv4ojfj5hklj07j/_A120202.ORF?rlkey=7zbzlcibffdxm255t7k2nk8we&st=o5j54bye&dl=0

LrC:
crop 16:9
radial filter to emphasize the angle of incidence of the sun

Let it be colourful...
DXO photolab with Nik Color Efex Warm Sunset preset.

Here is my attempt. Unlike those so far I have cropped in on this and tried to straighten the waterfall because it looks very wonky to me. I'm not sure if that's just an optical illusion. In ACR I have tried to add in some light. Or bring out the light that is there. And some dodging and burning in Photoshop.

Oh yes, I went there and it was not possible to get in the right position to take a pic that would show how beautiful Tahquamenon Falls are!!
Too many people already there shooting 🤷

Removed all the not-related parts, played with the light, to make the falls the main object.

Tahquamenon Falls in Fall

Here's my take on this, just tried to emphasize/straighten the falls a bit while keep it relatively natural...

Lightroom

Here's my fairly natural version

...except I did take up on the offer to remove the brown colour in the water, and did that just for fun. I don't usually clean up waterfalls :-)

a bit of straightening and few tweaks here and there and some overall tone curve adjustments.
Also found that nice mist over the water behind the falls and enhanced that too.

Just a silly note about how I do see the fall:
The fall is perfectly straight in the original pic.

I suppose the fall's wall is not a straight-linear 90° one-piece wall!

If you look at the left part before the big dirty water jet, everything is level, and the wall is perfectly 90° to the viewer.
If you look at the bottom basin water surface ... it's fully horizontal

!!!??? @#ZX)=?==

But if you look at the right part ...
... the nearest part of the wall to the viewer is under the dirty flow, going right from there, it recedes, far back a few meters at the end, behind the trees.
That in the photo looks as if it has an excessive perspective,
and makes the upper water basin appear not to be horizontal.

Reasoning: if the bottom basin is horizontal, how can the upper basin not be horizontal ???

It took me many minutes to make this reasoning.

(Something in my brain was sounding strange 😁 )

PS: maybe the OP, having seen it in person, may tell us how the fall's wall is in the real world!!

I think “correct” is somewhere between where your edit is and where most people are, the falls follow a an irregular line that’s hard make sense of from the OP’s shooting perspective. (Not my shot, just something that popped up in a Google search).

Yeeess !!! ... That's a very beautiful fall ... with an "irregular" wall

Thank you for the pic!!
I was racking my brain how big that fall was, and didn't think about googling it!!

That image confirms my doubt about the dirty jet being the most advanced part of the fall in the viewer position,
and my hypothesis for the wall getting farther from that position!!

(My brain was feeling something that my eyes didn't perceive )

PS: My ingliss is quite limited when trying to express something not related to tech, sorry. 🤕
"irregular" was the missing word 🤷
"racking" = "arrovellare" > to roll up 🙄

So I boarded the first flight available and went there with a limousine service.
But alas, when I was there, in my dream I discovered I've forgotten to take my Nikons!!!.
... and took this pic [from google 😂]

Here, the bottom basin seems not to be horizontal!!

Second try.

Using the upfront trees to get the vertical perception.
Changed lightning with a better knowledge.

Cropped to get the visible part of the waterfall an undisturbed subject ...
.... living imagination to follow the waterfall behind the trees

I think about the French expression "Trompe l'oeil"

the waterfall in an early fall

As several of you have noted, the fall line is quite irregular and very wide, and the angle I was shooting created a bit of illusion too. I tried to line up with the trees (easier to do once you brighten it) but of course trees can fool us too, particularly in places like this. Feel free to make your own interpretation and to be creative in your choices. If you look at the one taken from a drone, I was amid the trees at a secondary viewpoint because the trail and viewpoint you see defined by right-side fencing in that photo was being repaired.