Some people did not like the tracks in the snow, so I tried to smooth it. Not sure that this is better.

Looks to me like the footprints in the snow are far less objectionable than the tires in the snow. We can't always get pristine images, and first image is not bad.

JMR

Alan, John's right, and your clone job on the first image worked out well. Good shot. Here's a suggestion though: Any image you upload that's more than about 500K is overkill. An almost 1 meg image like yours isn't any sharper on a 72 ppi monitor than a 500K one, but it takes an annoyingly longer time to view.

I agree with John and Russ.

The smoothed version is much better, as the tire tracks are distracting. You nailed the exposure nicely, and the composition works well. I love the richness of the brown barns.

I think the picture would be stronger had you left a bit of room on the left. Also, it seems to me that the verticals are not quite so, and I would be tempted to rotate the image less than one degree clockwise.

The picture is a winner.

I like the one with smoothed tracks. The framing a a bit tight but that's amost nitpicking. It's a very nice image.

Many thanks to all of you for your interest and very helpful comments.

I'm in a minority here obviously, but I prefer the "real" version with tracks, footprints and all. Two reasons for this:

- Although you did a great job cloning and smoothing the very large area of snow it still somehow doesn't look quite right to my eyes... difficult to tell on a monitor rather than a large print, but the cloned areas seem to have lost some of their texture and sparkle.
- Compositionally, I quite like the tracks. Apart from giving some texture, they help lead me into the image.

Ed

Sorry about that. I thought that a larger file would allow people to view an enlarged section better but I do appreciate your point, espcially if the internet connection is slow.

No tracks would have been best, but between these 2 I prefer the one with tracks.

Cheers,
Bernard

I tend to agree with you and Ed B. I made an enormous enlargement of the area on the left side and did the best I could with the smoothing and merging. Luckily it provided a readymade path but I was never happy that it was totally convincing and felt that crispness and fine detail were lost.