thought maybe some people want to give a go at editing this photo,
This photo is by one of my facebook friend(s).
I thought it was great it that it captured the sky and didn't blow out. So get set...go!

ACE (Adaptive Contrast Enhancement) and Color Grading:



Although the image is not "blown out" (as trandoductin said), the contrast has suffered a bit ..using ACE brings out a lot of detail.

Thank you trandoductin for sharing such a beautiful picture.
My two tries.

As above (ACE + Color Grading) then GMIC Corvo's Painting:

I wasn't too keen on the composition - it looks lop-sided to me, so I've cropped it square and gone monochrome to focus attention on the shapes and textures of the wood.



Kevin

Ace + lighting effects + FxFoundry (photo >>> local contrast enhanc.) and bit of brush.

sure is fun to watch people jogging/running on this one.

my view

sharpen, tone mapped, applied a gradient mask to change light/shadow distribution

Since it is called "tree trunk" I thought we should make the tree trunk stand out!

david.

great results..peeps..
here's another one maybe ...hope you have fun.

trandoductin: that last one is a real challenge, i think! when my boyfriend stops hogging our broadband dongle i'll download it and give it a go. pat david's method with luminosity masks would be great on that, i think.

my try,
Used Luminosity-masks.
and played around with Brightness/Constrast/Saturation of the D and the L layers.

GMIC Dream Smoothing then Color Grading:



50:50 blend of GMIC Dream Smoothing and GMIC Graphic Novel, then Color Grading:

my try

very much different sensation!

...a more optimistic view

nice work everyone! jontait, that's some great looking fake paintings - i love the graphic novel filter. dinasset, your last one is really different, looks like a field of downy, blue flowers or something!

here's my result - used luminosity masks to change the lightest tones to a warmer and greener tone, the darkest tones are a bit deeper blue and i pulled up the saturation on the midtones. the picture was smaller than i expected and i hated how little i could do with it before bad things started to happen, so i added blur in some places too, using two layers with different layer masks and different degrees of blur. in the end i had to treat the foremost piece of rock separately, because it looked awfully pixellated no matter what i did - i'm okay with it now.

Very good results of you all. It's difficult to get something better but here my try. Thank you trandoductin for sharing your photo.

nice one, Issabella!