Originally posted by rRnt Thanks for the positive feedback,
cbaytan, what do you mean by heavy manipulation?
The photo is a bit cropped and straightened, no noise reduction was necessary in post processing.
Excuse me, but shadows transitions under the cow seems pretty unreal to me, especially when look at the snow very bottom left arrow points a very unreal shadow tip transition/reflection, angles of the light should not permit such a shadow, in fact all the shadows under the cow statue in color difference (dark blue snow vs real snow look) and darkness iin that area is pretty unreal to my eyes.
As a conclusion the blue snow area seemed selected with Lasso tool in PS and played with colors & saturation to me . I might be wrong tho. Sorry if I am.