N AZ and S Utah Views

bgarland

Here are a few shots I got on my trip up to the Lake Powell area earlier this week.

The first is off Alstrom Point overlooking Lake Powell.


1.


These two are from Lower Antelope Slot Canyon East of Page


2.


3.


These two are overlooking Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado river

4.


5.



Pics 1, 4 & 5 are my first attempt at HDR so hopefully not over done. 2 and 3 of Antelope slot canyon are just out of the camera with minor PP slider tweaks.

Any CC would be very welcome. Thanks.

mtully

Awesome shots!

The great advice I got here on the forum regarding the HDR shots is to bump up the curves to get a greater tonal range. They can be a bit too flat otherwise.

hawkeye978

I like the details you are getting in 1, 4 and 5 but they seem a little flat with regard to contrast. That's kind of par for the course with HDR. I usually wind up going back in Photoshop and applying a curves adjustment to bring back the contrast.

bgarland

Thanks for the input. I'll give that a shot.


It was funny, I tried to run a few of the slot canyon bracketed photos through Photomatixs but for some reason the software couldn't handle the images well. It kept running things like black stripes on the rock off into the air??

Maybe too complex an image to process for HDR? I liked how the out of camera shots came out anyway. I was just playing with the HDR approach.

Sexy6Chick

I saw these over on EXPO and I think this is a great set of pictures. You did really well on capturing some awesome shots. I want to go to all of these places. Well done!

bgarland

Sexy6Chick wrote:

I saw these over on EXPO and I think this is a great set of pictures. You did really well on capturing some awesome shots. I want to go to all of these places. Well done!

Thanks Natalie. They are an easy deal to get to as long as you don't go in March when the roads are a muddy mess.

I'd be happy to send you the GPS coordinates if you want to go attack them.

I can't take credit for the locations. Others pointed me to these spots including Aaron. I appreciate the community's support and advice pursuing my hobby. :-)

Brad

bgarland

Second attempt an improvement?
OK second try here. I brought the HDR images of Horseshoe Bend into Lightroom and increased the tonal curves to add more contrast and dialed down the color saturation. Do these look better now?

1.


2.


3.

acowan

First, I didn't notice any obvious HDR look to the photos and still really don't even after I read that three pics were HDR...that's a good start IMO. The first picture looks great and kept me looking at it for a few minutes. The two Antelope Canyon shots are nice too. I like the dark edges converging to very warm light. Of the redos of the Horseshoe Bend I prefer the second one. The others, though not having the muddy shadows of HDR, do seem a bit oversaturated. However, the second redo looks nice to me.

zoomer

The first is my favorite, you got the hdr just right in that one, also like the slot canyon shots. Good stuff.

The bend photos are tilted to the right and there is some sensor dust near the bottom of the last one in the water.

The originals do not look sharp and then need just a bit of normal contrast.
The redone versions I do not like.
Go back to the originals, straighten them, give them a levels adjustment, up the contrast a bit give them the right amount of sharpening and they will probably look pretty darn good.

Overall a nice set of an amazing area.

cbbr

Great shots. I love the slot canyon shots.

dlplumer

Brad, that first shot is truly special

bgarland

Thanks for everyone's input and suggestions. I'm just learning this process so I appreciate the feedback.

Thanks Dan. Always respect your feedback. :-)

bgarland

zoomer wrote:

The first is my favorite, you got the hdr just right in that one, also like the slot canyon shots. Good stuff.

The bend photos are tilted to the right and there is some sensor dust near the bottom of the last one in the water.

The originals do not look sharp and then need just a bit of normal contrast.
The redone versions I do not like.
Go back to the originals, straighten them, give them a levels adjustment, up the contrast a bit give them the right amount of sharpening and they will probably look pretty darn good.

Overall a nice set of an amazing area.

I went back to original of the one I liked and removed the dust spots and a piece of paper on the foreground, did some minor contrast and levels adjustments and I think this one is now a keeper. Thanks.

zoomer

Still crooked tilted to the right, look at the water not the horizon.
Did you do noise reduction to it, trying to figure why it looks soft.
This one does look better....to me.

bgarland

zoomer wrote:

Still crooked tilted to the right, look at the water not the horizon.
Did you do noise reduction to it, trying to figure why it looks soft.
This one does look better....to me.

Your right, I was looking at th horizon. :-) I'll try a little tilt left.

Yes I had some noise in the sky so I ran a pass of Noiseware against it. Maybe a tad too much softening.

Thanks for your continued input.

kdog

Agree with Zoomer. You've noise-reduced significant detail out of the horseshoe bend shots. I love the first Lake Powell shot, but I think you've lost detail there as well. You should apply noise reduction selectively to just the sky. Even better, manually blend the sky from the underexposed shot on top of the HDR. No noise reduction needed if you do that, and you'll have the best possible sky. The slot canyon shots are excellent as is.

Cheers,
-joel

shniks

#1 and #4 - WOW. Love them...



Cheers,

JC

love the layers in #1
I really like how the bottom of the clouds mimics/parallels the strata in the rocks, that makes the first photo really unique to me.

bgarland

zoomer wrote:

Still crooked tilted to the right, look at the water not the horizon.
Did you do noise reduction to it, trying to figure why it looks soft.
This one does look better....to me.

OK here's a complete redo with the HDR smoothing reduced, preserved more detail and tilted a bit to the left. Man there so many options in this process it will take a lot of practice to get good at it.

zoomer

Yes that is where your sharpness went....see the detail in the rock now.
I am not sure on the level of this photo, looks like if you even out the water it will look tilted to the left if you straighten the horizon it looks tilted to the right...hmmmm.....

bgarland

zoomer wrote:

Yes that is where your sharpness went....see the detail in the rock now.
I am not sure on the level of this photo, looks like if you even out the water it will look tilted to the left if you straighten the horizon it looks tilted to the right...hmmmm.....

Maybe just split the difference in tilt between the two.

bgarland

Here's a tilt "tweener" version.

morgan20

amazing amazing amazing photos. clapclap