Alaska Pt II - Denali Needs Help

redleash

Here is a shot I took of Mount Denali from the train. I was fortunate enough to see the mountain clearly on 2 different occasions. I like this shot but am not happy with the PP. I am not sure if it is because I was shooting thru glass or if I'm just missing something. I tried it once with Aperture 3 and once with PS + Topaz Adjust but didn't like either. This version is the Aperture one.

I'd appreciate some assistance with this one, please. More contrast? Too blue? Saturation more or less?



Thanks,
Lauren

Robin Casady

Care to make the RAW file available for us to experiment with? Difficult to PP a JPEG.

Here are some simple curve adjustments in Photoshop.

NeilL

This one would possibly have benefited from bracketed exposures - impossible to do from a moving train! - and judicious hdr. You could do the artificial method and see if that adds anything. In any case I'd start with setting black and white points in levels, and maybe then experimenting with blending copies of the image together using different blending modes and opacities, like this:





Makes a nice b&w too!








Neil

redleash

Thanks, folks. I thought about B&W but hadn't tried it yet. With enough contrast, I agree that B&W could make a nice image! I tried a Curves adj in Aperture but didn't like it. But I admit I gave up pretty quickly, so I will try some more. I definitely would've used a bracket if I could have--as Neill says, it's hard to do from a moving train. (I did try it from the ship a few times but haven't processed those yet--I am curious to see how they look.)

If I don't get something I'm happy with, I will be glad to make the RAW file available for someone to try.

redleash

Please give me some C&C on this version:

craig_d

Your new version is better, but I think the image might benefit from slightly warmer color balance. You could also try copying it to a second layer and masking it to allow you to process the mountains and sky separately from the foreground (basically faking a GND filter). Then you could compensate for atmospheric haze and make the mountains seem a bit less ghostly. You don't need HDR for this.

There's something about those clouds above the mountains that I don't care for. They're either too dark or not dark enough, depending what you want them to do. You had a nice shot at the mountain, but the sky wasn't cooperating all that well.

redleash

Thanks, Craig. I'm going to keep playing with this one. I do have some other shots of the mountain that weren't taken through the train window, but the mountaintop is hidden. I'll try one of those and post it for comment also.

Lauren

NeilL

craig_d wrote: »

Your new version is better, but I think the image might benefit from slightly warmer color balance. You could also try copying it to a second layer and masking it to allow you to process the mountains and sky separately from the foreground (basically faking a GND filter). Then you could compensate for atmospheric haze and make the mountains seem a bit less ghostly. You don't need HDR for this.

There's something about those clouds above the mountains that I don't care for. They're either too dark or not dark enough, depending what you want them to do. You had a nice shot at the mountain, but the sky wasn't cooperating all that well.

The whites in the original jpg that I used are slightly warm, and I kept them that way in my version. In my example processing of the color version I restricted myself to PS only, blending layers and masking, as the OP said they had tried some plugins without joy, and I didn't know what others were available to them. The differences between my version and the original are slight but significant. This image cannot be much more edited in PS without pushing it into artificiality and exaggeration, and I purposely didn't go down that route. Keeping an acceptable balance between FG and BG is another restricting factor (in the OP's 2nd version the FG is rather opaque and icky, while the mountains lack definition, IMO). Something further could be achieved using channels, which is maybe a bit too esoteric for the OP's needs. My b&w version uses my color version in two blended and masked conversions in Nik Silver Efex. The pleasing contrasts obtained in the b&w version emphasise the success of my color version, and the greater luminosity in my color version over the original answers to a great extent your discontent about the clouds in the upper sky.

Neil

redleash

Thanks for the explanation, Neil. It's helpful. I think I will shelve this one for a while and come back to it.

NeilL

redleash wrote: »

Thanks for the explanation, Neil. It's helpful. I think I will shelve this one for a while and come back to it.

You're welcome, Lauren. Without getting some specific feedback from you to suggestions - "I like/don't like such and such." - it's a bit hard to get a handle on how you are imagining this image! Here is a version with high pass sharpening >100 roughly brushed in. Does it give you any kind of a buzz?:D







Neil

redleash

Neil - I do like the high pass sharpening. I've used it on other shots but hadn't tried it on this one. You've brought out the details in the mountains nicely. The color is too blue, which I am finding on many of my shots. I do shoot with Cloudy WB most of the time, since I shoot raw and can correct it in post, but I am having a hard time settling on the right tone for my shots. I'm struggling with the blue tone on others from this trip, as well as this one you've seen in this thread. I also took so many shots that I'm having a tough time remembering what some of them looked like in person.

Thanks for your help with this one. I'll play with it some more and post if/when I reach a result I'm happy with. If you want to play around with it some more, you are most welcome to do so--but don't spend too much of you time on it. It may just have to be a nice snapshot for the scrapbook! I'm hoping to find a wallhanger amongst the shots I took, as I have an empty space in my den. :-)

Lauren

NeilL

redleash wrote: »

Neil - I do like the high pass sharpening. I've used it on other shots but hadn't tried it on this one. You've brought out the details in the mountains nicely. The color is too blue, which I am finding on many of my shots. I do shoot with Cloudy WB most of the time, since I shoot raw and can correct it in post, but I am having a hard time settling on the right tone for my shots. I'm struggling with the blue tone on others from this trip, as well as this one you've seen in this thread. I also took so many shots that I'm having a tough time remembering what some of them looked like in person.

Thanks for your help with this one. I'll play with it some more and post if/when I reach a result I'm happy with. If you want to play around with it some more, you are most welcome to do so--but don't spend too much of you time on it. It may just have to be a nice snapshot for the scrapbook! I'm hoping to find a wallhanger amongst the shots I took, as I have an empty space in my den. :-)

Lauren

The blueness could be embraced!? But even if not, you could desaturate and change hue. Nik has some tools for such lurks.

Neil