What technical feedback would you like if any?
How does the color balance look? When sharpening dune images do you selectively sharpen certain areas and leave other areas soft to keep a smooth look? I sharpened globally.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
I’m waffling back and forth on this one. I like the pulling from the top and bottom, but i’m not sure if the middle 3rd of the image breaks it too much. At times I do, but then I go back to liking it again.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
2 images focused stacked at F11 for near dune and background. Nikon d850 220mm f11 1/25
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Hi Hermann,
The colour balance looks good to me.
I’d consider a crop to a 4:5 ratio removing the lower part of the image.
For sharpening I use the action on the TK panel. I believe the action sharpens areas with details and avoids smooth areas.
Nathan.
Nice image. I like the little bush in the lower right, its shape mimics the shape of the large dune. When I sharpen anything, I create a mask on the layer and examine all of the photo for areas that look too “crunchy” from sharpening and than incrementally mask out the oversharpened part. Usually I totally mask out the sky. Also, sharpening often leaves a halo between the sky and the land, so I carefully, with a small brush, make sure the sky mask just overlaps onto the land.
I like the color balance. A nice ratio of cool / warm. Very nice details. Sharpening looks good. I would definitely be doing selective sharpening on an image like this.
Hermann,
I think this works really well; a very simplified yet effective composition from the dunes in Death Valley (also notable because you included the mountain and desert landscape up top - good call)
The formatted ratio in the digital world really stretches the vertical comp to the point that I’m still not comfortable with it (in most situations - I’m still a 4x5 or 5x7 kinda guy…) So in this particular case I do think that 1/3 of the image you mention is a bit more real estate separating the foreground bush and the mountains in the bg. I don’t think cropping the bush out works as that’s an important element. But again it’s the vertical stretch that creates that separation. I think even a 5% or so crop off both the top and bottom actually shrinks the vertical and lessens the impression of stuff getting lost in the middle (even though nothing changed in the middle, only the overall image got shorter. Not sure if that makes any sense…
Color balance works very well. Of course from a personal choice perspective I think you have room to warm the dunes and cool even more the landscape up top to create an even more apparent warm/cool color balance. But colors are natural as presented.
Nicely seen and capture.
Lon
This is very nice, Hermann. It really speaks to this locale. Processing looks good but I think I would crop about 50% of the first layer below the bush. I don’t think it adds anything to the image.
I would agree with the comments about the format. When you have horizontal layers such as this in a high vertical format the composition gets chopped up considerably.
The dark bluish background is fabulous and works well with the gold. But rather than the bush at the bottom I would have waited for the light to generate greater textures on the sand.
Lon,
Thanks for the detailed response. I see what you mean about the long ratio. I cropped down to 5x7 and 4x5 and it definitely works like that as well. I’m going to play with the white balance more and sharpening as well.
Thank you to everyone for the responses. I played with cropping and there are a few different options that work well. I think the biggest thing I will experiment with is the sharpening. The sand throughout has texture, but i am going to try and only selectively sharpen the ridge and areas where the detail is more apparent.
The dunes are endless in possibilities. Next I want to explore more remote dunes, like Ibex, panamint, and eureka.
