Either something has been removed from the image, or there is a nasty smudge on your lens in the top left corner. As the noise in this part of the image is different from the rest, imo, something has been removed.

I can assure you that I did not remove anything. All I did was to adjust some curves. Things like that happen sometimes.

loved it

so what is the smudge about then author, as in the hi res, it shows as different to the rest of the image.

It looks like a dust spot on the sensor to me - easier to spot on a blue background. Author I would simply using the healing brush in PS (assuming you have it) to remove the bothersome spot

Very nice, maybe it would be better to crop out the shadow, it kind of draws your eyes away from the gorgeous tree.

I hesitated to do that because the tree would seem much shorter. Furthermore, given the title, I thought the shadow could represent a "frightful hollow". No?

Wow, how old is that tree? Did you ask him...? =D I agree with Emik though... perhaps you should crop half of it? Nice picture btw

I think you could afford to lose the shadow, or at least most of it. maybe crop it out to just below the top of the burr lump to the left of shot.

A proverb says "if two people tell you you're drunk, go to sleep!". Three of you told me to crop the shot so... here it is. Better?
Yes, Mikaelbg, I did ask but I got beaten with a branch because it's a lady tree, she won't tell me her age!

Much better. The little bit at the bottom left of the shot still shows that there is more height to the tree than actually shows.

Yes! Way better like this, good luck!