Again, another great improvement. BTW, I don't thing it looks odd with a shadow and no tree because the tree could be just out of the frame anyway. Good job.
Response: Fixed the sloppy rotation and cloned out the tree, which I had genuinely overlooked. Its shadow remains – let’s hope no one notices! Contrast & sharpness revisited too.
Ok, after hitting Post for the last message, I looked at the pic again. It looks like it has been rotated too much. The reason I say too much is because it is leaning somewhat clockwise, and the black line on the left makes it look like it was rotated in that direction prior. I would rotate it a bit counter clockwise and be sure when cropping, you remove the black that gets left in the image.
Interesting picture. Good DOF. Not sure if I'm liking the little bit of tree in the upper left though. I think there should either be more tree visible or none at all. It almost looks like it was overlooked during composition. Personally, I would clone it out, but this is just my opinion. Others, I'm sure, will feel differently. Still a very nice shot. I really like it.
