Edit Me An Image #9 - Trees in fog - Nov 17

There is also a method called Contrast-Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization ...

... works quite well, it seems:

Silver Efex Pro 2

Yin and Yang

Actually now that I think about it, the subtle halo could be caused by the sun being behind me (somewhere above the fog) or simply by condensate on the lens. Apparently dehaze and similar contrast-increasing tools exaggerate it greatly.

Eke'd a bit more colour out of it. And just noticed a post and rail fence between the trees...

Interesting to note that that fence is plainly visible in the Retinex image posted earlier.

Yes it's visible in quite a few of the previous posts, I just hadn't noticed it.

My Test.
Mainly added a load of grain and reinforced a dominant colour.
C1/SilverEfex/FastStone

Joining the over-the-toppers with the GIMP's 'Alien Map' and other secret sauce:

Find the Werewolf

Post-processing with as few changes as possible

Apologies - I sent a closing message prematurely as I thought I was the whole day late. I suspect nobody noticed though as it only lasted a few minutes :) Please cast your final votes!

From timestamps, we have about 2 hours left before the voting closes. There's still time to cast your final vote!

And the voting has been closed.
The winner was determined in the last few hours. @Fireplace33 and @Maoby both got 5 votes.
It's very close and very tough but the win goes to @Maoby as I had to decide the winner by the rules. Congratulations @Maoby!
Some comments will follow.

A few thoughts on the entries. I was amused to see so many different interpretations. It's interesting that in many cases the direction the editing took was to reduce the fog by applying dehaze or similar contrast-increasing tools, as if the fog was a problem. And depending on the creative goals, the fog can be a problem indeed. However, some entrants took advantage of the fog (including the winning entry).

The runner-up entry dprevived.com/t/edit-me-an-image-9-trees-in-fog-nov-17/6474/post/88897/ was executed very well, and @Fireplace33 provided an excellent explanation on the editing rationale and steps. Technically the image looks very good.

The winning entry dprevived.com/t/edit-me-an-image-9-trees-in-fog-nov-17/6474/post/88944/ has a canvas-like filter(?) and positive (white) vignetting applied. That creates quite a mood, although at a cost of technical quality - but I think it was intentional.

Now in the opening post I said that removal of distracting objects was up to the entrants. Not everyone decided to clone them out. It's very subjective but I treated the fences and the barn roof as very distracting. In the foreground, some posts are cut in half which is not only distracting but also annoying (at least to me). The main subject I considered to be the juxtaposition of the two trees, one fading out due to the fog. The fences seemed to be a mere distraction.

So the winning entry hides almost all the distractions behind vignette, and the runner up entry just accepts them. Both interpretations are fine, the winning one is a little bit more appealing to me.

Another entry I liked - dprevived.com/t/edit-me-an-image-9-trees-in-fog-nov-17/6474/post/88861/ - also hides distraction by increasing the fog level. Personally I think I like it more that the winning image but it's just me.

Some of the entries made use of creative/strong processing filters. And some of them look interesting. I think, however, the filters that were applied were a bit too much, so that the effect becomes more important than the content.

In some entries, the colour saturation was increased. It creates an interesting look although it's a departure from how things look like in the fog.

So thanks again everyone for the entries and good luck with your photo editing endeavours :)

And in the end I'll post my own version - please feel free to comment in critique:

Yes agree - in my version, vignetting might be a bit too much.