My wife and I took a short trip to the Sierra East Side a couple of days ago. It was wicked cold. I found this nice group of aspens in the mountains above Bridgeport.
I am mainly curious about the color balance–too warm?
What are your thoughts about the composition?
Nikon D-7100
Nikkor 70-200 @100mm
F-16 @1/20, ISO 640
Your comments are always appreciated. 
-P
Thanks for the great suggestions, Mr. H!
I reduced the yellows and greens, primarily in the background and foreground. I also burned those grasses in the LRC. What do you all think of this tweaked version?
-P
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
This is a real nice Sierra aspen scene. Not a “wow” image, but very enjoyable viewing. It looks a little green to my eye, most noticeable in the background. Minor stuff though. Otherwise, it doesn’t look too warm to me. A second thought, maybe burn down the grasses LRC?
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I am finding the background still has somewhat of a green cast to my eye. Maybe experiment with masking it off and playing with the neutrals in selective color or some other PS tool of choice?
Wow Preston, this is gorgeous! The only thing I don’t like about it is that it’s not mine! And what day(s) were you there? I was there with JoAnn Frid-Mon the past weekend. Spent most of my time around the June Lake loop and south. Sorry I missed ya!
What is so great about this image is that it captures exactly what the Eastern Sierra has to offer in terms of autumn images; no grand mountains or hillsides of huge aspen groves… Autumn in the Eastern Sierra must include the sage brush… hillsides of scrub; sage and rabbit brush; little tufts of yellow grasses and even the granite boulder… I think this image is a gem and I love it.
Technically, I can see the color cast once it’s been pointed out, but it’s not too far off. My first impression though was that this is a bit heavy on the contrast - almost crunchy (not in a sharpening way), but just a tad hard on the contrast. The sage naturally is a kind of green/cyan color so I think the bg slope looks pretty close; but if I look at the granite boulder as a reference, it’s also looking a little green.
The only other wish would be just a skosh more room up top to give the main aspen a little breathing room, but that’s minor.
So here’s my interpretation. I used a Selective color layer to neutralize the green and a Levels Layer (TK’s MT5) to drop the contrast and also burned down the grasses in the LR.
This one needs to be printed sir.
Preston, it just so happens that I’m fond of that greenish type of cast and from an artistic point of view it goes well with the yellows. So my vote is for the original. I also really like Lon’s rework.
Hi Folks,
Thanks for your kind and considered comments.
I’ll look at my master file again, and may post an updated version later–I need to give this one some gurgle time.
@Lon_Overacker–Krill and I went over this past Sunday, spent the night in a hotel in Bridgeport and came home Monday afternoon. Aside from Green Creek, we made a trip up to Twin Lakes where I got a couple of images to post.
As an aside, I got my first look at the devastation caused by the Donnell Fire–holy c**p! Some places along Hwy 108 are just gone! Fortunately, Kennedy Meadows and our canyon of Deadman’s Creek were untouched, but it was close.
–P
Hey Preston,
Nice work. Lon pretty much said what I wanted to say.
