Improvement in editing in LR Classic and PS. Also, I value any other feedback as well.
All feedback is appreciated.
Nikon D500, 24-70mm f2.8 Tokina lens, 1/80th second, ISO 250 shot at f8.0 at 70mm
Welcome to NPN. I personally have never been to this part of the world so I don’t know exactly how it looks. One thing I see is that the bottom part of the image is in shadow. Shadowed areas are naturally blue, however they are green in this image. I suspect that this occurred because you wanted to warm up the sunny area and applied that white balance change globally. Yellow mixed with blue makes green and your shadows start to look green. That’s my guess. If so then I would process the sunny areas separately from the shadowed ones using masks.
Igor, Thanks for your considered reply to this image. I understand what you are saying. As it is, the foreground in the image is green, not bluish. The green trees are desert oaks. The image was taken at dawn, and the light in the direction I faced was quite even. I do appreciate what you are saying about processing different parts of an image separately. I will use your suggestion with future images. I think what you are saying can be accomplished with masks or even using the ND filter in Camera RAW. Thanks, Igor.
Welcome to NPN Larry, I’m glad to see you posting here, and look forward to seeing more of your work. I really like your composition, the panoramic format is perfect for all of those wonderful horizontal layers in the foreground. I also like that you chose to place the mountain slightly off-center, rather than going for a fully symmetrical composition.
In terms of processing, the exposure and contrast look well handled. But I agree with @Igor_Doncov about the white balance / color looking a little bit off. Igor is right, shadows are naturally cool, and our eyes are accustomed to seeing cooler shadows in images. Yes the foreground vegetation is green in real life, but green has many hues, from warm greens to cool greens. Greens in shadow are naturally a hue that has some blue. These greens look too warm, which is essentially what Igor is saying in a different way. So I would recommend adding some blue or cyan to the shadowed foreground. Yes, you can do it with Lightroom via the gradient tool, which lets you adjust the blue/yellow slider. Cooler shadows would also create some better color contrast vs. the warm tones in the sunlit areas.
Welcome aboard and nice first post. I really like the layering in the image and the sense of depth.
I read Igor’s suggestion and while valid, one does not need to present shadows in blue just because nature may have done it that way. The human eye typically neutralizes the blue cast, so warming up the shadows looks quite natural. Before the digital age, it was a very common practice to put on a warming filter when photographing in shadows. Either way I find a very valid presentation. Whatever works for you, in other words.
Larry,
Welcome to NPN! What a grand first post; I think an excellent portrayal of this landscape. For me, what jumps right out is the layering effect bottom to top. I think you’ve handled the exposure beautifully, as well as the processing.
As to the processing and color balance, I like this as presented. We can all talk about cool shadows (and I agree completely that shadows, by definition are cool because they are missing the yellow…) BUT - the missing yellow isn’t the only factor. Here, we have a large area of diffused lighting. Yes, it’s clearly in shadow, but given the broad area, there is plenty of scattered, defracted and diffused light that well, I just think looks quite natural here. Of course I have no bearing on what it looked like standing there… but anyway, I think this looks good as presented. If anything, you might try and squeeze some color out of the sky; maybe even cropping a sliver off the top since the sky isn’t really doing anything to enhance the scene other than provide the top layer.
Looking forward to more images and your participation. Welcome aboard!
Lon
Hi Larry,
Welcome to the community. I look forward to seeing more of your work.
Even though the shadows may have been warm I think that cooler shadows for for this image.
As you’ll be printing quite large it seems to me that the focal point was towards the last third of the frame to ensure that Kata Tjuta was sharp. The foreground looks a little soft to me and I’m wondering where you could focus stack to get more sharpness through out?
Thanks everyone for your excellent, well-considered comments and suggestions. I find them most helpful and instructive. Many thanks.
