Red Rock Canyon

Phyxius · April 24, 2007

I still have to go through all of these, but I uploaded a couple real quick to show some friends at work, so here goes...

ShepsMom · April 24, 2007

Beautiful place Christina, i soooo wanna go back!! I miss all the beautiful rich red colors. Thanks for sharinig!

Skippy · April 25, 2007

Phyxius wrote:

I still have to go through all of these, but I uploaded a couple real quick to show some friends at work, so here goes...

You can see why they named it Red Rock Canyon for sure

.... awwwwwww and you got cute little critters too

I want one

Nice series Christina

.... Skippy
.

philiphutson · April 27, 2007

Phyxius wrote:

I still have to go through all of these, but I uploaded a couple real quick to show some friends at work, so here goes...

Hope you don't mind I did a little work on them (on my unprofiled laptop so no guarantees on the colors). I set a black point and a white point then pulled alot of blue out of them and dropped the midtones.
Of course my normal recomendation get there at sunrise or sunset. Of course for me convincing my wife to get up with me at 4am to get to that perfect spot is pretty much impossible, so I have two powerful, light, led flashlights always in my camera backpack so we can stay well after dark.
My second recommendation I couldn't tell for sure but it looks like you weren't using a circular polarizer. Get one if you don't have one. I use one from 2-3 hours after sunrise to 1-2 hours before sunset (of course I evaluate the light to determine if I need to keep the polarizer on or not).

-Philip Hutson

Ann McRae · April 27, 2007

Hi Christina

Red Rock canyon is amazing. Just so you know, there is a red rock canyon in Waterton too!

Here are some of my shots from a few years ago - trip to Vegas with dh, one day car rental to hit RRC, Hoover Dam and Valley of Fire - but I did use a CP on my 828 for these. Interestingly, Mark M suggested to all of us that there was enough contrast in Bryce not to use a polarizor. Wonder (and doubt) that that will hold for glacier.

http://canadian-ann.smugmug.com/Vacation/16371

ann

philiphutson · April 27, 2007

Marc would know if a polarizer should be used. He is definetly the expert not me.
-Philip Hutson

Marc Muench · April 27, 2007

philiphutson wrote:

Marc would know if a polarizer should be used. He is definetly the expert not me.
-Philip Hutson

You gettin me in trouble again Phil

D

This is a good time to explain what I was getting at during the Bryce Canyon shoot. I wont use a CP where there is a lot of contrast and I am not concerned about loosing detail where light is reflecting. However, that means I will be doing work to the image in post similar to what Phil has done here. I do use a CP in the middle of the day when the sky is hazy, only when I want to eliminate the haze.

I would not have used a CP on these shots, simply because it may turn the clear and deep blue sky black.

Phyxius · April 27, 2007

Thanks everyone!

Skippy, yes they are cute little critters and boy can they move fast!

Ann, I glanced at your pictures and I can't wait to sit down and look at the rest of them!

ShepsMom, thanks! It was so weird to be in desert with just rocks and some scrubby little plants, very different from around here!

Phyxius · April 27, 2007

Marc Muench wrote:

You gettin me in trouble again PhilD

This is a good time to explain what I was getting at during the Bryce Canyon shoot. I wont use a CP where there is a lot of contrast and I am not concerned about loosing detail where light is reflecting. However, that means I will be doing work to the image in post similar to what Phil has done here. I do use a CP in the middle of the day when the sky is hazy, only when I want to eliminate the haze.

I would not have used a CP on these shots, simply because it may turn the clear and deep blue sky black.

I actually did use the CP on these, the sky wasn't so blue.....it was quite, quite hazy outside and mountains were grey and the sky was very pale and hazy. I slapped on the CP and spun it around and around, but these were the best colors to come out. I made it out to Red Rock at about 7:45am, it's unforunate when the people you're with don't want to get up as early as you

:

Phil, I love the idea of the edits you posted, but they are SO much more vivid, saturated, and contrasty compared to how it really was that they look a little fake (to me, since I know what it really looked like). I took your advice though and slimmed it down a little on a couple shots, including the two I posted early....what do you guys think?

Even these have FAR more color and contrast than was really there, but I think they look a tad more realistic.

silica · April 27, 2007

philiphutson wrote:

Hope you don't mind I did a little work on them (on my unprofiled laptop so no guarantees on the colors). I set a black point and a white point then pulled alot of blue out of them and dropped the midtones. -Philip Hutson

The saturation in the first photo is a little strong for my taste. I actually prefer the original.

mr peas · April 27, 2007

Red Rock is always fun to shoot. Good hikes there too. Its getting warmer here now a days, hopefully you got there when it was still nice and cool.

thanks for sharing, cool fotos.

Ann McRae · April 27, 2007

Phyxius wrote:

I made it out to Red Rock at about 7:45am, it's unforunate when the people you're with don't want to get up as early as you :

Oh, oh.....Christina is going to be setting the alarm for early a.m. !!!

Actually, I love the result of getting up in time for sweet light, just not the 'getting up in time' part

And, FWIW, in the mountain valleys this may not be an issue.

ann

Phyxius · April 27, 2007

Ann McRae wrote:

Oh, oh.....Christina is going to be setting the alarm for early a.m. !!!

Haha, I'm one of those incredibly annoying people who gets up early without an alarm. Unless I'm dead tired I'm up at 6 without the alarm. I promise not to wake anyone else up early (even though 6 isn't that early) and I'll make coffee if someone shows me how.

I'm also generally happy

, but I make up for it by being a smartass occasionally. (Skippy knows

)

kkart · April 29, 2007

philiphutson wrote:

Hope you don't mind I did a little work on them (on my unprofiled laptop so no guarantees on the colors). I set a black point and a white point then pulled alot of blue out of them and dropped the midtones.
Of course my normal recomendation get there at sunrise or sunset. Of course for me convincing my wife to get up with me at 4am to get to that perfect spot is pretty much impossible, so I have two powerful, light, led flashlights always in my camera backpack so we can stay well after dark.
My second recommendation I couldn't tell for sure but it looks like you weren't using a circular polarizer. Get one if you don't have one. I use one from 2-3 hours after sunrise to 1-2 hours before sunset (of course I evaluate the light to determine if I need to keep the polarizer on or not).

-Philip Hutson

Philip, I would love to see farther explination on how you set the white and black points, that is a day and night difference!

goofry · April 29, 2007

Phyxius,
I hope you don't mind, I made a couple of color edits. I just picked up the Dan Margulis book, "PHotoshop LAB, the Canyon Conundrum..."

These looked like perfect examples of the method in his book. I converted them to LAB color space and spent about one minute adjusting the color. I hope you like the result.

I think the sky got away from me on this one, just too brilliant.

Phyxius · May 1, 2007

First Try @ Panos
And I know, especially for the second one that the beginning pictures aren't that great, I was shooting directly into the sun, but I also knew I had very limited time (I couldn't come back) and I wanted to be able to show what that spot looked like from the overlook. So, not quality in my opinion but certainly an interesting first try.

I think this first one is 7 images?

This one is two layers so it's 12 images.

hawkeye978 · May 1, 2007

Phyxius,

The first one is impressive. Did you have the camera mounted on a tripod and just rotate through? Is that where the horizon curve is coming from?

What's the consensus on the curve, leave it in or take it out in post processing?

Phyxius · May 1, 2007

hawkeye978 wrote:

Phyxius,

The first one is impressive. Did you have the camera mounted on a tripod and just rotate through? Is that where the horizon curve is coming from?

What's the consensus on the curve, leave it in or take it out in post processing?

Yup, tripod mounted. I tried playing around a bit in Photoshop to get rid of the curve, but everything I did made the rest of the image warp so I just left it in. Maybe someone here has the super secret "easy fix" ??

:

philiphutson · May 1, 2007

kkart wrote:

Philip, I would love to see farther explination on how you set the white and black points, that is a day and night difference!

Sorry I didn't see you request until just now.

To set black using curves in photoshop is fairly easy. In the navigator window change to info. Then bring up the layers window and create a new curve layer. The new layer button is the half black and half white circle at the bottom of the layer dialog. Choose curves from the menu that pops up. From the window that pops up click on the eyedropper with the black dropper section. Finally move the curser around areas of the image that is or should be black (deep shadows are a good place to look),watching the info box for numbers that are in the teens or less if possible. When you’ve found a dark area click on it, you've now set that area to black. The results should be immediate.
For the white point there is a clear eye dropper near the black eye dropper. Follow the same procedure as for the black point just looking for numbers in the 240-255 levels. By using layers you are not making a permanent change to the image so you can always throw away the layer or simply hide it.

I know Marc has a alternate method he was going to post that uses blending.

-Philip

kkart · May 4, 2007

philiphutson wrote:

Sorry I didn't see you request until just now.

To set black using curves in photoshop is fairly easy. In the navigator window change to info. Then bring up the layers window and create a new curve layer. The new layer button is the half black and half white circle at the bottom of the layer dialog. Choose curves from the menu that pops up. From the window that pops up click on the eyedropper with the black dropper section. Finally move the curser around areas of the image that is or should be black (deep shadows are a good place to look),watching the info box for numbers that are in the teens or less if possible. When you’ve found a dark area click on it, you've now set that area to black. The results should be immediate.
For the white point there is a clear eye dropper near the black eye dropper. Follow the same procedure as for the black point just looking for numbers in the 240-255 levels. By using layers you are not making a permanent change to the image so you can always throw away the layer or simply hide it.

I know Marc has a alternate method he was going to post that uses blending.

-Philip

Nice I will give this a go and I really thank you!

wxwax · May 4, 2007

Phyxius wrote:

Yup, tripod mounted. I tried playing around a bit in Photoshop to get rid of the curve, but everything I did made the rest of the image warp so I just left it in. Maybe someone here has the super secret "easy fix" ??

:

Yes!

Here's the thread with Marc Muench's secret sauce recipe.

Red Rock Canyon

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