Reducing highlights can be difficult for me. Any help would be appreciated.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Overall composition?
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
This is not a composite. My workflow is to do minimal post processing in LRCC and then move to Photoshop using TKPanel7 for other post processing, such as clarity, luminosity masking, etc.
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@natureslacephotography
Hi Doreen,
This scene has an amazing sky. It looks like a great morning/evening to be outdoors.
Your histogram on his image looks like the highlights are blown out which may explain why you’ve had a had time controlling the highlights.
I would go back to the raw file and see if you can reduce the whites slider to see if the raw has the missing information. If you hold option/alt as you drag the whites back you can see if there are any tonal values that are clipped.
I have a similar workflow to you in that I use camera raw and then PS with the TK panel. However I do a lot of the heavy lifting in camera raw as there is more information in a raw file than a tiff file. I pretty much do all global adjustments in the camera raw interface. When I export to PS I like to have the major tonal adjustments done and the general colour direction done. I use PS for fine adjustments usually selective adjustments.
Thank you Nathan for the feedback. I will look at my histogram and see if there is any clipping. Most of my work is done in LRCC. Fine edits will be done in PS. I’ve just started using TK7 and trying to understand luminosity masking. It’s been a challenge, but I do like the results. Thanks again.
Doreen, this is a pretty amazing sunset, and i love the contrast of the warm colors in the sky with the cool tone sin the shadowed snow. I also like your composition, you have a very powerful foreground element to anchor the scene with the snow covered boulder.
I agree with @Nathan_Klein that you have clipped highlights both in the sky, and some parts of the snow. As Nathan said you can try pulling down LR whites and/or highlights to rein this in. Since you said you use TK, I did a rework where I made a TK Lights 3 selection, placed it on a curves adjustment layer, and simply changed the blending mode of the layer to Multiply to darken highlights. You play with opacity to taste.
Welcome to Landscape!
Lovely combination of elements Doreen. That’s an amazing sky.
Great thoughts above, and I’ll add that the foreground could be darker. (It’s almost brighter than the sky currently.) With that sky, I would expect a lot of color in the snow, much like the water is reflecting. Backing the foreground snow away from white should let those colors show a bit more.
Hi Ed
Thank you for the suggestion. I will try those. TK7 is so robust, I never thought about changing the bending mode.
Thanks again. 
Doreen
Welcome to NPN Doreen. As others have said, this is quite striking. The only suggestion I would like to add is that the blocked shadows in the trees is really attracting eyes in a big way. I downloaded it and worked on that a bit. They had a LOT of red and magenta in them so I reduced that first and then using TK’s masks I dodged darks 4 and darks 3 as needed to bring, what I think is a more realistic view so they are just not almost totally blocked.
To make it easier to judge differences, I’ve uploaded your original, ed’s rework, and my rework for comparison.
Wow!! All awesome suggestions. I’m reworking the image now with all your suggestions.
Thank you so much
Doreen
Hello All,
Attached is my reworked version. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks for all your suggestions.
Doreen Lawrence
doreen@natureslace.com
www.natureslace.com
I think the foreground snow looks better. But I think you have lost contrast and saturation in the sky by pulling back too much on the highlights, and the color of the blue in the sky looks off. I much prefer the sky from my rework, which is essentially your original sky with a TK L3, curves adjustment layer & multiply blend mode to gently pull down highlights while retaining contrast. The sky from my rework has more contrast (as does your original). I also prefer the saturation level of the original sky. Just my $0.02.
