Merry Go Round

[mikemeister_admin]

Took a new tack for this image,but spent a lot of time putting things in and taking things out.GregM

[ggroess]

Greg,

At first I thought it was too red...I even went to correct it...but then I found it was really a loss of "richness"  for lack of a better term...It seemed flat in some way...Again I was not able to quantify it...

The skin tones were solid, the horses are neutral, you have opened the shadows.  and yet....

So...Try this ACV on top of your image as posted.  I thought it added a richness to the image.

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

You're right,I tried to use PSE's shad/high to balance the upper and lower levels of the ride but it sucked some content from the image and I chased my tail trying to get it back.GJM
Below with Greg's correction

[ggroess]

hmmm...all things being equal... Adobe must access the K channel or the L channel to smack the image during the Shadow / Highlight filters application. 

I bet you could recover the tonality by not taking such a big bite in S/H in the first place.  maybe it's the levels setting...

Greg