Continuing the image editing thread, 15th issue!

General rules:
A previous round winner presents a busy or just not so interesting image, having at least some potential for different crops or visions.
Anyone (except author of original image) can edit the presented image, up to three distinct edits in separate posts are permitted.
All edits must be based on original image, not on another people's edits (of course borrowing ideas would not be a problem).
Short explanations about your editing intentions are encouraged, but not required.
Once the deadline for images has been reached, no new image versions will be accepted. Questions and (polite) discussions of techniques are welcome, so that we can learn from one another how certain edits were achieved.
The edited version gathering most likes within the announced period, wins and its author will start next round.
On the closing day for voting, if there is a draw in the number of likes for two or more edits, then the person that posted the original image will decide the winner.

Editing rules:
All "normal" adjustments (brightness, colours, curves etc) are permitted (both local and global ones).
All geometric adjustments (perspective, cropping etc) are permitted.
Artistic effects (brushes, textures etc) are allowed.
No additions or replacements may be made to the main subject matter of the image; non-essential objects may be removed, and parts of the original image can be "moved" to a different position in the image. Sky replacements are OK unless the sky is the main subject. (We are still refining this rule).
Generative AI must not be used

Timing:
Get your images posted by Jan 11. As always, you can vote during the entire contest plus one day after the image submission deadline. I'll post reminders. You can peruse the entries and finish up voting on January 12.

The photo:
Below you can find the jpg image below and here’s a link to the RAW image

This shot was taken back in 2018 on a trip to Iceland. We were in our 4 wheel drive car and drove up over the top of a hill and suddenly saw all these ponies. I only had time for a quick shot so our car is still in the way in the shot. The next shot was without the car but the ponies weren’t in such a good position anymore.
If you’ve been to Iceland you’ll know about the wonderful colours of the landscape all covered in moss.
Took this using an Olympus OMD EM1 ii and the wide angle Leica zoom 8-18. Limited to 20MPixel, but cropping m43 images is still possible 😊

Have fun.

Couldn't give up all that scenery, so I just trashed the car and cropped a little.
Cut the red a tad, our hero's jacket was a little OTT.

I made quite a drastic crop to preserve the important scenery. I decided the anoraks of a couple of riders needed toning down. The red anorak is now grey. Nothing distracts like a red blob. I messed around with the colour sliders a bit too.

Enhanced sky (no replacement). Enhanced greens a bit. Cropped out bottom portion.

No idea what the natural color of Iceland is like (would love to find out), but here's my take on this. Not happy about cropping so much image away, but it made for a stronger composition (IMO)...

Here's another try. I didn't think this would work as well without the color, but I actually rather like like this version...

A very very long time ago

Standard edit with crop and a minor color adjustment to make it look colorwise like the Iceland I saw (probably different season)

Same crop but overpainted with mixer brush and canvas texture overlay.

A couple of Icelandic wormholes:

and of course my final variation is a monochrome vintage type look.

The great crossing

Thanks for all your edits so far!!!
There's a few days still to go if anyone else wants to show us other possible ways of improving the original image.

Last day to post any new entries is tomorrow :-)

RESULTS !!!!!

Thanks for all your entries.

Again this week we had a tie between NCV & ArvoJ, with 4 votes each, which leaves me to make the final decision,...
.... drum roll ,.....

....And the winner is ArvoJ with his unexpected "vision of Hell"

Congratulations, this was quite a radical edit, completely changing the scenery into a fantasy world where the riders are travelling through a burnt and still glowing lava-like landscape perhaps on a dramatic mission, like in the Lord of the rings on the way to Mordor?
I have no idea how you did this, but it looks interesting !
It's also really quite different to how I process my images. I usually present my images in a more "realistic" way, similar to our runner up image this week from Nigel (NCV)
Congrats to the 2nd place!

I'll make a few more comments to the other images later

But now it is over to ArvoJ to find a new image for us all to play with.

A few more comments

All edits removed the car that “had got in the way“ when I took the photo, which was good. Some just cropped it out while others partly cloned it out, leaving more of the original image to “play with”.
Most edits were what I’d call “realistic” approaches. Interesting to see the differences though.
NCV removed the red jacket. We all have our preferences. I thought that “red blob” added to the image; the riders were for me the main subject, and that red worked to highlight one or two of them with a bold complimentary colour in the mainly green landscape.
The ones that came closest to the “real” bright, and warm Icelandic colours on that day, (at least as far as I can remember), were from NCV, ErikWithK and the first edit from Minniev.
I liked the punchy sharpened version from Sagittarius, but maybe it could have been just a bit warmer.
From all the B&W entries, the first from ErikwithaK seemed to hit the spot for me; a nice crop, good tonality with enough contrast, and the riders stand out well here.

The second “painted” version from Minniew deserves a special mention; it really does look like a painting, almost impressionist !
And Alan’s last edit, with the added sky, works well too with this image, it seems to generally fit well and adds some more interest.

As mentioned, the winning entry from Arvo was something special because it was completely unexpected. I’m glad it didn’t look like that when I was there, but it shows the possibilities we have to enter into a fantasy world with our images and our modern editing tools.

Good luck to all with the next round
Trevor