California Hills

Image(s)

Image Description

This is an oldie, from 2005 with the Canon 20D, my first digital. The raw file was very flat and I had fun bringing up tonal detail. But when i decided it might be worth posting I wasn’t happy with the details and re-processed from scratch with better denoise. I wasn’t able to exactly reproduce the original tonalities but think it is a bit better – a little more dramatic. Probably again the hills on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

Feedback Requests

All comments welcome!

Pertinent Technical Details

Screenshot 2025-05-10 at 1.05.14 PM

Some heavy-handed slider moves in LR to increase contrast – although I never use the contrast slider itself. Into PS for Topaz Denoise – and boy, did it need it, although it wasn’t underexposed. Then a little more playing with saturation and tonalities. Cropped to maybe 50%.

3 Likes

You’ve created an excellent image here Diane, with the contrast of light and dark areas on the hills giving it a great deal of three dimensionality. It’s amazing how we can improve our older images using the latest photo editing technology.

Beautiful Image. As we learn we improve. I’ve learned that !!! Great tone and very cool light in the bottom corner. really like the composition !!! Way To COOL !!!

Thanks, @Ted_Forman and @Gill_Vanderlip! I try not to post too many older images, feeling newer work deserves more attention, but once in a while I find one worth reviving.

Old or new. I’m always interested. Learn as we go and sharing our journey is really important to me.

Diane: Effort nicely rewarded. I really like the tones and how you composed this. You made some very fine lemonade here. Superbly crafted from capture to presentation. >=))>

Thanks, @Bill_Fach!