Click here to see an alternative landscape
view of the same scene here, and read more details about the location.
Despite first impressions, there are very few effects on this image actually, although admittedly it does look like it has had. I used spot metering took a reading from the highlights in the middle and the low lights, and took a shutter speed in-between with a bias towards the lows (easier to work with an under exposed than over exposed image). The key component (and best investment so far) was a cir-polarizing filter, the filter holds down the over the top high lights, and also brings less light into the camera allowing longer exposures which are a must with the water really. The only Photoshop treatment was to convert it to B&W, I used a channel mixer mask layer, (with monochrome selected) lots of red to bring up the contrast and a balance of green and blue to bring up the mid and high tones. (a tip is to try and get the overall percentage mix to 100% with the biggest majority being red, but experimentation is the key). I then used the lasso tool to make a selection of the stones, with a feather of 150px and adjusted the curves to bring out the mid-tone details and again some selective level adjustments to the water to make it a little less dark bringing up the highlight / reflections. Apart from that, this is a genuine exposure (honest) ;).