Thanks to comments below, here’s a tonal correction that should be more accurate to the scene. Explained below. Have not yet neutralized the shadows --although I wouldn’t fully. Will go back to the raw file and start over.
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is from November 2014, near Bishop. It was just at the start of snow season and the mountains were pretty bare.
Specific Feedback
All thoughts always welcome!
Technical Details
Opened the raw files in the current process in LR and used the current pano stitch but did little else – global tone and color work but nothing drastic.
Hi Diane,
I really like your image of the Sierras. I have many fond experiences up there in that range and in hanging out in Owens Valley looking up at them. Your early morning November light panorama captures it all. A knee jerk reaction is it would be nice if there were some puffy clouds. But no, it is a a crisp winter’s day. If there are some wisps in the sky as part of winter you may consider coaxing them out ever so slightly for texture. The image has a large dynamic range (which in IMHO is good): First the sky, then the peaks with shadows and then the foothills in the shadow. You may wish to try to raise the whites/highlites/exposure of these. I like the nestled valley perched in the center of the range. Consider including the change in light of the foothills to be the same or similar for the valley. Lastly, the lighting across the whole range may draw the viewers’ focus to more to the right and overshadow the initial impression of the whole. So consider lowering the brightness of that part ever so slightly so to balance it with the left.
Diane, wonderful light here on this section of the eastern sierras near Bishop. I really like this dusting of snow across the range. The entire 395 corridor is full of photographic opportunities…
Only change maybe is a little additional contrast…
I don’t know how I missed this, I usually scan the “Everything” header that includes all galleries, I guess this was posted during my last photo outing and I just missed it.
Of course my comments rarely add anything of value, so no loss there.
I still like to comment when I can though.
Anyway, this is gorgeous!
The scale is huge, are those some sort of radio or communications towers in the FG? They appear way too large to be fence posts (judging by the roads).
I love the colors and textures, and the sun is at a good angle because the shadows are great!
Thanks, @Andre_Goforth, @Paul_Breitkreuz and @Merv! Yeah, clouds would have been wonderful! Maybe next time! The sky was dull and I might punch up the blues a bit. There was one cloud in the whole sky and it cast the thin shadow on the center peak. Andre, I think I pushed the highlights to just short of blowing but I’ll look again. Balancing the right and left better is a good idea – I’ll look into that, too. This one was a lot more gee-whiz technology than art. My default state.
Diane, this is an impressively long range of rugged peaks shown well by the warm early light. The contrast between the high peaks and the lower, unlit ridge keeps the attention in the right place while adding context and showing off the lighting.
Thanks, @Mark_Seaver! I can’t wait for an upcoming trip in June!
@Andre_Goforth and @Paul_Breitkreuz – thanks for the eyeballs on contrast/brightness issues. I had been puzzled by the dull color of the sky, which I would expect to be bluer. So I dug into the histogram to look at the snow color. It was quite yellow from the rising sun, which also gave the gray mountains that lovely warm glow. I normally slap out global contrast issues with the Blacks, Whites, Shadows and Highlights sliders in LR. But like all colored lighting, this one needed better management.
Looking at the PS file with Curve, the right end was just sloping down to the right side – on the RGB display. But (of course) the Red curve was just barely blown, while the other two stopped short. So I did an adjustment to the other two to bring them closer to the right end. That took some of the color off the snow and also brought down the midtone color cast on the peaks. It also made the sky a purer blue, which is the clue that the image had an unnatural color cast. What I did was basically a tweak to WB, which is a heavy-duty tool.
I didn’t do further work to the shadows but will go back to the raw files and see if I can do a better job, and then go back to PS with it. Meantime, here’s the quick fix for any further comments – posted above. I think it is much more realistic. (Paul – I’m apparently still suffering from Velvia envy…)
BTW, the poles are power lines – I can just make out insulators at 100%. It seems like a strange string of several lines.
Diane, yes the sky in the re-post is much better as well as color cleanup too…
I hear you on Velvia 50. Sadly, Fuji is in a real funk right now. I think they’ve been down for a few months now and many feel it might be an ending. Their claiming no access to raw materials…
Not sure about all that as at the same time Kodak is actually hiring and looking for talent…
Fuji, different than Kodak, ventured off into many other businesses in the technical world and film became very low on their list of money making.
I personally switched after 30 years of Velvia 50 to Kodak Ektachrome E-100. I like the E-100 for color and also an additional F-stop too. I hope Fuji hangs in there as a back up for transparency films at least…
OK, went back to the raw file (fortunately a pano assembled in LR is still a raw file) and did more careful tweaks, paying attention to the Curves this time. I think the result is probably the most honest without neutralizing the colored spotlight on the show. Posted above.
Hi Diane,
The Re-post looks really good and might not need anymore editing but I think you could look at adding a little more warmth to the light on the mountains while keeping the shadows and sky on the cooler side like you have them now to add more color contrast. Not too much, just a touch.
Thanks, @Glenn_Tunaley – that’s a good description of what I did going back to the LR Develop module with the raw pano, but the computer was overloaded processing an astro capture in PixInsight and apparently wasn’t saving, or else the LR catalog wasn’t updating. Visualize something about halfway in between these two posts. I’m about to quit LR and update the catalog and see if I can find the result.
