Road to the Mountains

jamesl · July 18, 2009

I spent a few weeks in Montana with my family at the beginning of July. The weather didn't cooperate much for photography (clear beautiful skies most of the time), but I did manage to get out a few times while I was there.

This was captured along the front range of the Rockies, near the town of Choteau. I've always loved how this road seems to go on straight forever right to the mountains. The colors here are a bit overbaked, but I like how the image came out.

Tech Details: Shot with Canon 30D and 10-22 at 22mm. 10 vertical pano frames stitched with Panorama Factory. Each pano frame bracketted at -1/0/+1 (30 images total). Tone mapped with Photomatix and finished in CS4. phew.

thapamd · July 18, 2009

Another fantastic shot, James! I love the saturation in the sky. The blues in the sky are great too, but I may have toned them down a bit on the road, fence, and mountains. But that is such a minor nit. Great job!

annnna8888 · July 19, 2009

What a beautiful scene! I love the serenity and the composition. The colors are great, but like Mahesh I would tone down the blues just a bit. Excellent work!

Ana

Robbug · July 19, 2009

Montana is such a beautiful state. Just drove through there and was able to grab a few good photos myself. I agree with above. I love the colors. If you could tone the road down a notch then you would have a perfect photo imho. Great job!
Rob

dseidman · July 19, 2009

Very nice! I'd bring down the blue in the road a bit and make it some more natural tones. Everything else about this is awesome.

Eia · July 20, 2009

I feel like I want to take off running down that road! The saturation is a wee bit strong for the road on this monitor. Very inviting still!

hawkeye978 · July 20, 2009

Agree with the others. Great light and composition, but the blue is a little intense.

jamesl · July 20, 2009

thapamd wrote:

Another fantastic shot, James! I love the saturation in the sky. The blues in the sky are great too, but I may have toned them down a bit on the road, fence, and mountains. But that is such a minor nit. Great job!

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks! You are right about the blue. This is actually my second edit of the picture, and I toned down the blues in the shadows quite a bit. It nees a bit more still.

James

jamesl · July 20, 2009

annnna8888 wrote:

What a beautiful scene! I love the serenity and the composition. The colors are great, but like Mahesh I would tone down the blues just a bit. Excellent work!

Ana

Thanks Ana! Sorry for the late reply. I'm going to work to tone the blues down in the shadows some. Take care,

James

jamesl · July 20, 2009

Robbug wrote:

Montana is such a beautiful state. Just drove through there and was able to grab a few good photos myself. I agree with above. I love the colors. If you could tone the road down a notch then you would have a perfect photo imho. Great job!
Rob

Hi Rob,

Thanks! Sorry for the late reply. It definately is beautiful there. I try to get back there as often as I can. For the picture, I'll definately tone it down some.

James

Tango · July 20, 2009

really a peaceful image,

jamesl · July 21, 2009

dseidman wrote:

Very nice! I'd bring down the blue in the road a bit and make it some more natural tones. Everything else about this is awesome.

I'm finally getting back to replying on this shot. Thanks for the feedback, and I agree. I need to go back for round 3 of redoing this shot.

James

jamesl · July 21, 2009

Eia wrote:

I feel like I want to take off running down that road! The saturation is a wee bit strong for the road on this monitor. Very inviting still!

Thanks! That's the same way I've always felt when driving by this particular road.

Thanks for the feedback.

James

jamesl · July 21, 2009

hawkeye978 wrote:

Agree with the others. Great light and composition, but the blue is a little intense.

Thanks Hawkeye! Appreciate the feedback.

James

jamesl · July 21, 2009

AaronNelson wrote:

really a peaceful image,

Thanks Aaron!

James

jamesl · July 23, 2009

Ok, I finally got a few minutes to redo this shot. Here's the new version:

What do you all think?

Thanks!

James

jamesl wrote:

I spent a few weeks in Montana with my family at the beginning of July. The weather didn't cooperate much for photography (clear beautiful skies most of the time), but I did manage to get out a few times while I was there.

This was captured along the front range of the Rockies, near the town of Choteau. I've always loved how this road seems to go on straight forever right to the mountains. The colors here are a bit overbaked, but I like how the image came out.

Tech Details: Shot with Canon 30D and 10-22 at 22mm. 10 vertical pano frames stitched with Panorama Factory. Each pano frame bracketted at -1/0/+1 (30 images total). Tone mapped with Photomatix and finished in CS4. phew.

Tango · July 23, 2009

a striking difference for the better imo.

(im shocked by the re-vision)(WB adjustment? or something fancy?)

dlplumer · July 23, 2009

Much much better imo

jamesl · July 23, 2009

AaronNelson wrote:

a striking difference for the better imo.

(im shocked by the re-vision)(WB adjustment? or something fancy?)

Thanks Aaron!

It was pretty much a complete rework, starting all the way from the source images. I redid the HDR tone mapping, as that is where most of the problems arose. I've also starting using a different, less saturated workflow for my tone mapped HDRs, and I prefer the differences. Here's another example of old vs new:

Old:

New:

What do think?

Thanks,

James

jamesl · July 23, 2009

dlplumer wrote:

Much much better imo

Thanks Dan!

James

Robbug · July 23, 2009

whoa. A huge difference. Now you have a classic image there. Nice capture and post processing.

d7freestyler · July 23, 2009

Great shot! I love the rework.

jamesl · July 24, 2009

Robbug wrote:

whoa. A huge difference. Now you have a classic image there. Nice capture and post processing.

Thanks! Glad the new version works better for you.

jamesl · July 24, 2009

d7freestyler wrote:

Great shot! I love the rework.

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback.

Tango · July 24, 2009

jamesl wrote:

Old:

New:

What do think?

Thanks,

James

again the rework in the FG is an improvement, far more natural in dynamics to the eye IMO.

jamesl · July 25, 2009

AaronNelson wrote:

again the rework in the FG is an improvement, far more natural in dynamics to the eye IMO.

Thanks Aaron! That is really what I am going for, and working in HDR I tend to get a bit carried away.

Hopefully this new workflow will help me in reworking my images.

Take care,

James

schmoo · July 26, 2009

jamesl wrote:

Thanks Aaron! That is really what I am going for, and working in HDR I tend to get a bit carried away. Hopefully this new workflow will help me in reworking my images.

Take care,

James

Your reworks are excellent! HDR is still a scary pool to dip my toe in but you're really getting the hang of it and inspiring me.

jamesl · July 28, 2009

schmoo wrote:

Your reworks are excellent! HDR is still a scary pool to dip my toe in but you're really getting the hang of it and inspiring me.

Sorry again for the late reply. Thanks Schmoo! It's definately intimidating when you frist start working with it. I really like to avoid the overprocessed HDR look, and that takes particular care to do so. You should definately give it a shot, though. I think Photomatix has a demo version. That is the program I use. Good luck!

James

Road to the Mountains

Comments