The rock colors and striations found in the southwest never cease to amaze me. I found this little scene on my last adventure.
D850, 70-200mm
Repost:
Original
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Hi Harley, I too love the southwest for the color palette! The colors here are wonderful. Your intimate landscape is very nice. I like how you layered the image with the lower jagged edge, then the area where the plant is, and the above more orange rocks. The only thing I would suggest is positioning that little plant a bit more to the right, as it might create a more asymmetrical and therefore dynamic composition. Those jagged edges on the left below that plant ‘point’ to it, and if there were a few more of those outside the left frame, it could add to it. I do not know what is on the left outside the frame and perhaps that wasn’t possible. In that case, shifting the plant to the left could work, but it would require a bigger shift to get it into a sweetspot of the composition. The plant is presently centered top to bottom, and almost left to right. But I am not one to follow the rule of thirds all the time, nor am I suggesting you follow them in this case.
I like this very much Harley. I have some minor suggestions, however, which I will show in a rework.
(1)The plant is now jumping out enough for a main subject. I created a mask and lighted it.
(2). The image is too much half and half in color. I boosted the reds in the lower half to reduce this feeling by adding warmth to the lower half.
(3) The blues to me are a bit too dominating. I brought down the saturation.
(4) Assuming that the plant is the main point I feel that there is too much to the left and right of it. I recommend a crop on both sides.
Take it with a grain of salt, which you probably will.
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Thanks for your suggestion, @brenda_tharp. And thanks @Igor_Doncov for both the rework/input and a really good laugh over the grain of salt comment. While for me the rock is really the heart of the image, I like what you did with the plant. How did you mask it to get the separation? Can you explain your technique? Thanks
Beautiful lines, detail and colors, Harley. Good question, I had the same thought and and am hoping @Igor_Doncov would be willing to share the process.
I am not much of TK user so I use Photoshop to do the best I can. Under the Select Menu there is Color Range. The best thing about this option is to use the tonal options. In this case I used Highlights. You move the slider in Range to determine the tonal value. The more to the right, the higher the value. The Fuzziness slider determines how abrupt the tonal value mask boundary should be. Using those 2 sliders I defined my mask. The I created a Curve adjustment layer and it did so with the mask. I thien raised the whites of the tones selected in the mask. The mask was not very selective but it was selective in the area of the bush. I then used a wide black brush to erase the mask everywhere other than the bush back to it’s original tonal values.
The key trick is to select a mask that includes all of the bush but not it’s immediate surroundings. If you can achieve such a mask then you’ve got something to work with. The red rock behind the bush was a bit darker and I could maneuver the sliders to get that separation.
Hope this is understandable. Otherwise I will create pictures.
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I too love the colors of the American Southwest. I think that @Igor_Doncov took care of my main issue which is that everything in this image appears to be moving from left to right and from lower left corner to top right corner with the angle of all of the rocks. There is too much dead space on the left side of the image which Igor took care of. I like that he actually cropped off part of the right side as well however I like the blue in this scene and would leave that in. For what it’s worth!
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Thanks @Igor_Doncov . I haven’t tried it yet, but your description totally makes sense. I will give it a try. Nice to learn a new technique! And @David_Haynes, thanks for the input. Much appreciated.
Thanks Igor for sharing this technique. I just gave it a try and it works great. Clearly I need some practice but I can definitely see some good situations for it. Thanks again.
Thanks again, @Igor_Doncov for the great new PS tip. I used it and I also cropped some off the left and reposted. It seems I took your suggestions with a whole shaker of salt rather a grain. 
The rework looks great - that crop is definitely better. Well seen.
Harley, this looks great in both versions, although the repost shows off the plant better. I like how the plant is centered and the crack leading up to it. The blues, presumably sky reflections, are a fine color contrast to the red rocks. BTW, that plant looks like it’s Spotted Knapweed, a major invasive problem in high plains pastures.
Thanks for your thoughts on the image, Mark. The blues are actually blue rock rather than a reflection of the sky. The rock colors in this area are crazy in their variety and presentation. There are blue areas, red, yellow and some with all mixed in. A geologist would have a great time wandering through.
Great shot, Harley. Love everything about the repost. The colors and textures are so nice, and the plant makes an excellent main subject. The only suggestion I might have would be to frame it with the plant a little lower in the scene so it wouldn’t be quite so dead centered.