Circular cropping and feathering.

 

I photographed this image back in 2020 in Wells Gray Provincial Park, which is located about an hour's drive northeast of Kamloops, BC.  The park itself is enormous and boasts over 40 waterfalls and hosts a number of pristine lakes.  

I decided to do a circular crop because the corners of the rectangular image held nothing particularly interesting.  The soft edge of the circle was achieved by using a feathering selection tool.  I liked how the tracks start at the bottom of the circular fame and guide your eye upwards into the image, eventually running parallel to the background hills until they disappear altogether.  

I find that circular cropping and selection tools allow you to create an image that emphasizes components of a scene in a serene manner, especially when feathering is involved.  I have used this technique successfully when displaying portraits of individuals or groups and it also works well for images of pets.  

The amount of feathering is something of a preference and the values used depend greatly upon the size of the image and the amount of cropping.  The original image was 18 megapixels and I chose a value of 60 pixels (60 px in Photoshop) to do the job.  Too much feathering leaves the edges ghostly and too little makes them harsh and not soft enough.  Once done, I reduced the size for display in my blog.

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com