You've seen the best, now here's the rest...

CWSkopec

OK, so I'm late to the party, and I'm only bringing one dish to share for the moment, but here's the first shot I've processed from Toroweap.



I've been working on this image for a couple days now (off and on, not straight through) and now I can't decide if I've processed it too much, not enough or in the wrong direction all together so any and all critiques are welcome. In honor of a number of comments in the "Bye-Bye Whipping Post" thread, here's some tech specs:

2 seperate exposures, processed and stacked on 5 layers.
Sky Exposure - 100 iso, f9, 1/15sec (not truly dark enough for the sky so it was stacked and blended in "Multiply" a couple times
Foreground & Canyon - 100 iso, f9, 1/6 sec (processed a few different times for different areas then masked in.
Along with those, there's several adjustment layers masked into different areas to help balance everything out.

So... how'd I do?

Phenomenological

First off, I really like the shot, and generally think the processing is good. However, I'd say the rocks in the foreground are too bright compared with the main portion of the image and are slightly distracting...Maybe brighten up the rest of the image slightly or lower the brightness of the rocks?

Allan FG

Those were my exact thoughts, it is a very nice image.

Nikolai

Phenomenological wrote:

First off, I really like the shot, and generally think the processing is good. However, I'd say the rocks in the foreground are too bright compared with the main portion of the image and are slightly distracting...Maybe brighten up the rest of the image slightly or lower the brightness of the rocks?

+1 on all accounts!

dlplumer

Phenomenological wrote:

First off, I really like the shot, and generally think the processing is good. However, I'd say the rocks in the foreground are too bright compared with the main portion of the image and are slightly distracting...Maybe brighten up the rest of the image slightly or lower the brightness of the rocks?

+3

CWSkopec

Thanks guys!!

Looking at it with refreshed eyes, the area roughly at the center to the right of the river is really quite dark and seems to be lacking details, so rather than darken the foreground, I'll try brighten the rest and try to get some details back in there and match up to the foreground better!

Nik:
After hearing your praise about the Blend If sliders, I did some reading and gave that technique a try to blend in the sky instead of the masking, but just couldn't get it. On the lighter exposure for the ground, there was still detail/color in the sky (not good looking, but it was there) would that have messed up the Blend If (all the tutorials I saw were with detail-less blown skies) or do I just need to do more reading/experimenting? (and I appologize, I haven't got a sample, unprocessed frame available to post at the moment, but if you'd like to see one, I'll post it tonight from home)

Nikolai

CWSkopec wrote:

Thanks guys!!

Looking at it with refreshed eyes, the area roughly at the center to the right of the river is really quite dark and seems to be lacking details, so rather than darken the foreground, I'll try brighten the rest and try to get some details back in there and match up to the foreground better!

Nik:
After hearing your praise about the Blend If sliders, I did some reading and gave that technique a try to blend in the sky instead of the masking, but just couldn't get it. On the lighter exposure for the ground, there was still detail/color in the sky (not good looking, but it was there) would that have messed up the Blend If (all the tutorials I saw were with detail-less blown skies) or do I just need to do more reading/experimenting? (and I appologize, I haven't got a sample, unprocessed frame available to post at the moment, but if you'd like to see one, I'll post it tonight from home)

Chris, sliders alone may not always work, especially on the master channel only. Sometimes it does take both careful channel-based one (and not always in RGB, consider CMYK, too) AND masking...

pathfinder

I remember that view!

I think the distance is still too dark a dash, also.

Doug Solis

I agree the foreground rocks are too bright but I love the rest of the image its a dark moody composition, you don't see very often.

I would darken the foreground rather than lighten the background. You have a beautiful photo here. What the heck try it both ways and repost???

The dark sky works for me. The multiply-blending that gave the sky the dark look is very natural when looking at the lighting of the rest of the photo.

thapamd

Great scene with awesome comp and colors! I do agree with the other about the exposure, but that can be fixed easily should you want to.

Tango

proud of you young Jedi.

this is a very sultry portrayal of toro, looks good.

the river looks really good, lots of reflectiveness & luminance to catch the eye.

my nit for you is the Mtn in the BG that the river leads your eye to is too white, and in contrast to the seperate Mtn to the right is nearly black....

my other nit in IMO is your sky lighting needs a gradient to it, being darker up top. lighting the sky just barely above the horizon will add some depth, but only the lower 20% of the sky in frame should be changed.

IMO the FG is to light, tone it down a little but dont completely match the dynamics of the canyon...

No, Im not a Post pro, but I did stay at a Holiday Express last night.

CWSkopec

Thanks for the great comments and suggestions everyone!
I'm really short on time this morning so I can't reply to each one individually like I would prefer, but I wanted all of you to know I'm not just ignoring the replies.

Tomorrow afternoon/evening/night/late night are all set aside to rework this one and get some others processed so hopefully by Monday morning I'll have a reworked version ready for public viewing!

CWSkopec

reworked
OK, so the reworking was as much a test of patience as it was a test of skill... I've know for a while that my poor little computer was topping out on it's processing power, but this mega-huge file with all the layers has really put it to it's limit. I would make an adjustment and play a game on my phone for a few minutes waiting for photoshop to process... not fun...

That little disclaimer aside, thank you all for the helpful comments and suggestions I've done my best to keep them all in mind as I reworked this image! [fingers crossed for luck] We should be officially closing on a condo in a couple weeks, and I'm already imagining this image printed large and on the wall, so I appreciate all the help making it "wall worthy"

Anyway, enough small talk... on to the images:

1| Original


2| Rework


[edit: Being able to scroll between the two versions here, I'm wondering if I went in the wrong direction... I still have the original PSD, so feel free to tell me to go back to that version and start the rework again, of course that could just be me second guessing myself...]

thapamd

Chris, I think it is much improved, but you could still decrease the FG brightness.

CWSkopec

thapamd wrote:

Chris, I think it is much improved, but you could still decrease the FG brightness.

Thank you, Mahesh!

I've get the files transfering off my laptop to my work computer right now, I'll take those foreground rocks down a little bit more on my morning break.

CWSkopec

Whoa... I had a Brightness/Contrast layer over those rocks with the brightness cranked to +95! Not sure why I did that, or didn't see it last night, but it's been dealt with!

3| Rework part 2

thapamd

Now it's picture perfect! Awesome shot!

Nikolai

I like the recent version much better!

Allan FG

I really like the latest version, my eyes were bouncing all over the place on the earlier versions. This is a great shot.

CWSkopec

Mahesh, Nik & Allen thank you for the kind words and help along the way!

dlplumer

I agree it is much better and very good, however I would like to see the shadows brightened up a bit. jmho from my work monitor which is not great.:D

CWSkopec

dlplumer wrote:

I agree it is much better and very good, however I would like to see the shadows brightened up a bit. jmho from my work monitor which is not great.:D

Thanks Dan!

It may not entirely be your monitor, a couple of the shadows look like they're pure black. especially a couple in the foreground. I'll check the original file cause right now I couldn't tell you if I captured detail in there and processed it out or if there never was any to begin with.

[Update - Sadly, it looks like I didn't capture any detail in those pockets of shadows in the foreground, so they may have to just remain black unless I can find a lighter exposure in the archive at home. Dan, were those the shadows you were thinking of, or others throughout the image?]

dlplumer

CWSkopec wrote:

Thanks Dan!

It may not entirely be your monitor, a couple of the shadows look like they're pure black. especially a couple in the foreground. I'll check the original file cause right now I couldn't tell you if I captured detail in there and processed it out or if there never was any to begin with.

[Update - Sadly, it looks like I didn't capture any detail in those pockets of shadows in the foreground, so they may have to just remain black unless I can find a lighter exposure in the archive at home. Dan, were those the shadows you were thinking of, or others throughout the image?]

I realize Chris, some of the blacks are clipped and you won't be able to get any detail, however I still think it is worth lightening up the mid-ground (the area between the sky and the foreground rocks) on both side of the river. The photo is very nice at it is, but I would still experiment with what I am suggesting to see what you get.

CWSkopec

dlplumer wrote:

I realize Chris, some of the blacks are clipped and you won't be able to get any detail, however I still think it is worth lightening up the mid-ground (the area between the sky and the foreground rocks) on both side of the river. The photo is very nice at it is, but I would still experiment with what I am suggesting to see what you get.

Gotcha! I'll see what I can make happen tomorrow (my computer at work seems to handle this file 100x better than my poor home machine)

hawkeye978

The last version is great. The darkening of the foreground did the trick. I didn't get to see this thread until now because of travel but it was very interesting to see the evolution of the picture from the beginning until now.

kdog

Looks great, Chris! I love the depth in this shot. This will look great printed HUGE in your new condo.

Cheers,
-joel

CWSkopec

hawkeye978 wrote:

The last version is great. The darkening of the foreground did the trick. I didn't get to see this thread until now because of travel but it was very interesting to see the evolution of the picture from the beginning until now.

Thanks, Tom!!

CWSkopec

kdog wrote:

Looks great, Chris! I love the depth in this shot. This will look great printed HUGE in your new condo.

Cheers,
-joel

Thanks, Joel!!

I can already see it, right above the couch and right across from the front door. Hopefully it'll WOW some folks as soon as they come in!

shniks

Hi Chris- this is a really good shot, with the colors. I think the foreground works, but it could be a killer photo if you could just tone down the brightness of the rocks. In any event, really well done and look forward to the others in the series.


Cheers,

CWSkopec

shniks wrote:

Hi Chris- this is a really good shot, with the colors. I think the foreground works, but it could be a killer photo if you could just tone down the brightness of the rocks. In any event, really well done and look forward to the others in the series.


Cheers,

Thanks, Nikhil!

I've toned down the forground quite a bit since first posting, there's a revised version on the second page of this thread. Or is that what you're looking at & they're still to bright to you?