It had been a wet spring in Valley of the Gods, about to get wetter, and I was scurrying toward camp when I had to stop for one last shot. The light was as if a from a huge lightbox. I brought the sky out a lot, but wanted to be a bit restrained on the landscape, while still having an quiet impact.
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
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I was surprised at the redness of the sky, when I darkened it. I figure it is the reflection of the red sandstone reflecting with all the indirect light. I thought of cooling the whole scene down to see if it would pass for a moonlit scene.
Hi Dick, this is quite a cool shot. I think it does convey a moodyness but it looks overly warm to me, especially in the sky. It has more of a sandstorm feels than a rain storm - I would think the clouds would be more a dark grey, maybe with a hint of reflected light (red).
I would try going back to the RAW file and applying a neutral white balance. From there try some split toning (blues for shadows and oranges for highlights), keep the saturation down below 18 when using them.
I love the composition of this photo, but also agree it is too warm. I played with it and came up with this: reduced the warmth, increased midtone contrast in the rocks, and brightened it overall.
There’s definitely a mood here, Dick, resulting especially from the contrast in light between the horizon and the dark, rather menacing clouds above. I like the shot a lot - though I might go for a slightly cooler look ( if not quite so far that way as Tony has suggested )
Hi Dick, really nice image here, a lot of interesting elements. I do think it is still a bit too warm. Not so much in the sky, but in the foreground. I took the liberty of juggling a couple aspects. For me, the foreground needs a little more contrast and saturation, and maybe a little brighter. I increased those things a bit, and did a little dodging and burning using Alister Benn’s amazing History Brush method. Take a look and see what you think. It seems to add a little more dimensionality by emphasizing the color and light in the wash leading up to the mitten like formation in the back. I added just a touch of TK’s Make it Glow action at around 15% opacity.
Really nice capture, I truly like the ominous feeling, and perhaps a bit more editing could emphasize that aspect. I am curious about your user name though,
For a 50/50 horizon, this image actually has a pretty dynamic feeling, given those dramatic clouds. I also think the butte breaks up the horizon a bit, and that helps too.
I know you were trying to go for mood here, but the original post feels a bit muddy looking for my taste. Some of that is the color, (which you direction-ally addressed in the rework), but I think some of it is that there is a lot of room to the right of the histogram, and the midtones could be brightened some. IMO the WB of the landscape in the rework looks good, but it’s the sky that still bothers me a bit (I admit this is subjective, and a matter of personal taste). In this rework, I pushed the right triangle of levels to the left to open up the mid-tones, and selectively cooled the sky, to create a bit more color separation and contrast in the land vs. the sky.
That is a tremendous technique for bringing a monotonic sky to life. I had to first add contrast via Lightroom Tone Curve in order to make it work. Much more interesting than my use of PS curves. THANK YOU
I used Photoshop. First I used levels to increase mid-tone luminosity overall. Then, to answer your question, I used the magnetic lasso tool to make a selection of the sky. I then used this selection of the sky to create a mask on a PS Color Balance adjustment layer. On the color balance layer, I added blue to cool it down, and the mask constrained this adjustment to the sky only.
