Annette and I visit Bays Mountain Park, a 3,650-acre nature park and planetarium located on Bays Mountain in Kingsport, Tennessee, probably more often than any other park in our area. It’s about a 40-minute drive from home and we often pack a picnic lunch and take our twin grandkids along for the fun. Founded in 1971, it features a 44-acre lake and forty miles of hiking trails, a nature center with a planetarium theater, fire tower, and animal habitats.
Its nature center and outdoor native animal displays include a bobcat, raptor center, river otters, wolf pen and captive and free-roaming white-tail deer. Wolf howling sessions are held regularly where visitors can experience the sounds of the gray wolf. There is also a herpetarium with reptiles and amphibians.
The park also features an educational pontoon boat ride attraction that runs through the Bays Mountain Reservoir, called the Barge Ride.
Other activities include hiking, orienteering, mountain biking, camping, and fishing. There is also an adventure course with a zip line and the Steadman Heritage Farmstead Museum, a 19th-century period living history farm museum.
In 2017, the Pavilion at Lily Pad Cove was added for events rentals and special events and in 2019, 75 extra parking spots were added to alleviate peak season parking issues.
These photos with pastel effects were taken in September. I shot in RAW with my Nikon D750 camera and used Corel AfterShot Pro to convert the files. Then I used Topaz Denoise, Corel PaintShop Pro, Luminar AI, and Exposure 6 to further adjust and enhance the files in post processing. Finally, I used two Topaz legacy plugins, Simplify and Detail to add the pastel effect and soften the final results. I hope you enjoy!
A beautiful place. Interesting treatment.
Lucian
Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio
Why would you need to go through sooo many steps just to get this effect? Try just converting from a RAW to a Jpeg and then doing the Topaz things and I think you will get about the same results. I've used those pastel paniterly effects many times and it is a simple click and minor adjustment, rather than 6 plus different programmes.
Lucian wrote:
Why would you need to go through sooo many steps just to get this effect? Try just converting from a RAW to a Jpeg and then doing the Topaz things and I think you will get about the same results. I've used those pastel paniterly effects many times and it is a simple click and minor adjustment, rather than 6 plus different programmes.
Because it's fun for me. Thanks! How did you like the pictures or not?
These are wonderful! I feel they would be beautiful as chapter graphics for some romantic adventure. Just great. Keep doing these -- thanks
Nice. On some of these I would have liked to see a 'before' and 'after'.
nervous2 wrote:
Nice. On some of these I would have liked to see a 'before' and 'after'.
Thanks. That's what my wife suggested I should do too - before and after
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