Another shot from our first morning at Badlands. This is near Yellow Mounds and right by the other shot which is done in landscape orientation. What attracted me here is the small stream at the bottom and how it seems the colors in the hills are draining away. It isn’t as expansive as the other view, but maybe still works to convey part of the story of the Badlands.
Lr for the RAW work including a little wb tweak, texture, clarity, sharpening, nr and basic curves adjustments to basically flatten the image so I can work it in Photoshop. Then I do a lot of zone, luminosity and color masking and use those selections as stencils to do dodging and burning to bring up more dimensionality and contour. I also did a sky selection and ran a dehaze action.
Kris, your first one is wonderful for grand vistas, while this one is great for a more intimate feeling. I think both have a place in your portfolio. I can’t think of anything to suggest changing. Well done.
Thanks @David_Bostock - the light was changing a bit so I mixed up my processing to present different looks instead of using the same adjustments and values. I guess if I put them together in a series I might keep things alike across the board.
And now having diverted to the other one, I have to say I really like this one. It’s a fascinating landscape. Just enough FG to give me a place to stand. I do feel the sky could have more tonal structure and I would clone the darker area in the UL corner.
Thanks @Diane_Miller - I was really light handed with the sky on these because I feel people are going overboard with dehaze and other sky tools and didn’t want to do the same. But I can always mess with it. Tomorrow is going to be rainy so that will be the day. Today is for reading on the couch on the deck!
