Crepuscular wavelengths

Taken at Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. We happen to be there when everything was closed except for this one trail because of the pandemic. Hawaii is an excellent place for sky phenomenon.

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Any.
Anybody have any ideas how I could make the crepuscular light more intense? Then there’s the issue of some of the blown out white clouds. Tough exposure for sure.

Technical Details

ISO 160, 35 to 70 at 35 mm, F8, 1250th, Sony A1, around 20% of full frame

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I wonder if starting with a linear profile would let you tame the highlights, and then maybe overlay a masked layer processed from the raw with a different profile and settings for more contrast for the rays. Not an easy subject, for sure.

Hi David. I would start by bringing down your exposure far enough to check and see if you enough detail in your highlights. If you do then you should be able recover them. I see that you shot with the a1 which has a decent dynamic range. I would probably start with a basic edit that would give me a relatively flat looking image and then add contrast with some local adjustments, using tools like the radial, graduated, and local adjustment brush filter. That’s if you are using LR. I would also use the range mask to help restrict your selections. If you needed more precise selections you could look into Tony Kypers TK panel to create luminosity masks and then do some exposure blending. These techniques should also help with upping the intensity in the crepuscular rays.