Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. It spans the border between California and Nevada, southwest of Reno. One of the streams feeding the Lake forms Eagle Falls as it cascades into Emerald Bay on the California side. The top of the falls is only a few feet from the road, but I had driven by several times in the past without noticing it; waterfalls are not so exciting from the back. On a cold day in mid-May I took a two-frame panorama, looking towards Emerald Bay. The scene had interesting elements, but lacked punch. That is, until I unleashed the Topaz Labs Spicify Photoshop plug-in filter.

Here is the panorama with only a little tweaking in Photoshop to darken the sky.

A large version of the original image is here.

Paintings of the Lake decorate the hotels in the area. The paintings tend to use brilliant colors which, while inaccurate, successfully evoke the spirit of the place. I thus saw my chance to use the Spicify filter, which in the Adjust filter set from Topaz Labs. Spicify spices up images by selectively increasing the contrast, saturation, and detail.

A large version of the spicified image is here.

The stream is still not a major feature of the scene. Maybe some turquoise paint would take care of that.