This is a view from above Lake Valhalla, which sits beneath a particularly pointy shoulder of Lichtenberg Mountain near Stevens Pass in the Washington Cascades. I captured this handheld with an ISO in the upper hundreds and a relatively fast shutter speed, as there was some wind on the foliage in the foreground.
I “triple processed” from RAW using virtual copies in LR (one for the cloud area, one for the semi-sunlit mountain face, and one for the rest, all derived from a single camera exposure), and did some editing of tones and color to (hopefully!) balance out the image in PS.
I’m open to any and all feedback/cc on this image.
Great photo. Fabulous composition! I have some thoughts on the editing. Often when I do a lot of combining and editing (lots of darkening and lightening) to bring out the dynamic range and lesson contrast, in the end I look at the photo and it just “doesn’t look right”. I’m having that experience viewing this photo. The light balance doesn’t look right to my eye. The lightness of the foreground yellows contrasts sharply with the darkness of the trees on the right. The mountain peak and reflection in the water are much lighter than the sky, which is a physical impossibility. Maybe lighten the sky and darken the mountain and reflection? Or maybe it was like this and I am being to analytical…
Thanks Tony - good to read your take regardless of what the scene was actually like. The water was actually brighter than those clouds at the top, which were pretty close to me - whereas the lake was reflecting the further sky which was indeed a good deal brighter (as you can somewhat see in the upper left of the image (i.e sunlit clouds you mostly can’t see in this scene except as a reflection, versus the near clouds which were shadowed from the sun by thicker clouds behind me), where the near clouds thin enough to see a bit of what’s behind). It was part of what lured me in here - it struck me as interesting framing. But perhaps I’ve brightened the foreground foliage a bit too much here - I’ll play with that a bit. And I’ll explore some variations with the upper right cloud area too.
I think this is a superb composition, Jim. I don’t immediately see what Tony mentioned about the editing but I think it’s because the composition is just so spot on. I agree about the yellow in the foreground that could be tamed a little more. But the peak looks quite believable to me.
What a beautiful scene, James. I think this is composed very well although I might like a wee bit more breathing room up top above the peak. If it were mine I would consider cloning in a small strip of sky. Processing looks natural to my eye - only suggestion would be to tone down the highlights at the base of the peak and reflections.
This is a fantastic mountain landscape. The viewpoint is awesome and I just love exploring and discovering all the nice elements - including the red flowers up front, the lake of course, the dramatic peak and all that low hanging fog/clouds. Even the forest on the right works to hold in the composition (and the water!)
I don’t have much experience with double, triple processing - and so all we can do is go by what’s presented. I think the processing is excellent. With the exception of the vibrant red, I like that you’ve kept the rest of the colors quite tame - and of course natural.
I would agree Dave about wishing for room - both top and left. Just feels a little cramped there. I’m sure one of those situations where you just didn’t have enough lens to get it all in!
Nice shot! What a view. Thanks for including the technique. It’s been a while since I’ve used it. If I were to nit, I might boost the saturation a tiny bit, and maybe burn down the left hill side. Nice as presented though.
Hi Jim, I don’t really have much to add to what’s already been said but I did want to say that I really like this image, especially that little splash of red on the left side. Really nice work!
Beautiful scene Jim, with lots of interesting elements coming together to make the whole. My only suggestion would be to tame the midtone contrast a bit (at least on my monitor’s calibration):
Gorgeous scene Jim. As everyone has mentioned, your composition is excellent. I agree with @John_Williams thoughts on taming the midtones a bit, but I played with it and tamed them just a wee bit more. The only negatives I see are the two eye magnets - one is the road in the distance and the other is the bright fallen tree in the lower right. I cloned those out and a few bright spots in the trees in the middle right.
