Sugarloaf & Lassen

[maddogmurph]

I've been learning some new photo shop techniques, and here is the result of a wide array of tweaks, and fixes.  We climbed a cinder cone that day, it was cloudy and not very promising.  But further north I knew it was likely to be warmer and the cloud cover to maybe be thin enough to let some light through for a sunset maybe?  Taking the corolla S off road into brush and to the Rim I was pleasantly surprised with no wind, nice flowers coming in, a room with a view free of charge.  I lugged my large format 4x5 and snapped a few shots, never again I swore, would I take the stupid rail camera anywhere but out of the trunk of a vehicle...

[polaris-14]

I really like the composition of the second shot but the wildflower is very colorful on the first one. I have tried composition similar to the first shot but the diagonal line from top to the bottom somehow doesn't work for me. But of course that's very subjective. I feel you about lugging those heavy equipments though. 

[Paulo Bizarro]

The landscape looks nice, but to my eyes the land parts are too dark.

[maddogmurph]

The landscape looks nice, but to my eyes the land parts are too dark.

Thanks Paulo, I think you're right.  Easy fix, I'll take another look at them tonight and bump the exposure up a bit.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Looks like your lens cap isn't completely opaque and lets some light in when you forget to remove it before taking a shot 

[maddogmurph]

Looks like your lens cap isn't completely opaque and lets some light in when you forget to remove it before taking a shot 

I'm so confused by your comment here...?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I'm so confused by your comment here...?

The two images are so dark, especially as thumbnails, as if you forgot to take the lens cap off.

[framah]

...as if  you were exposing for the sun so that made the rest of the shot so underexposed as to be worthless. 

If you want to play in PS, shoot one for the landscape and one for the sky and layer them together.

Both of these shots MIGHT be really nice... just that no one can see them.

[maddogmurph]

Adding light.

[LesPalenik]

Much better now!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

There is one thing that can not be easily corrected in post processing: you were shooting in a very contrasty light situation. Highlights were blown and shadows blocked as a result. You did not mention if a grad filter was used, which could have helped somewhat. The other thing is simply to wait till the sun goes further down, closer to the horizon, where it weakens and the rest of the scene is lit more uniformly and gently.

[maddogmurph]

I think I just had the pol on for these shots.  But I could have pulled out the Grad, I don't think so because I was in a rush.  I was trying to get my large format set up before the light went away.  The yellow flower shot couldn't wait... the capture was to get the sun rays coming down in a fan like fashion with the sun-star in the clouds.  I shot sunrise as well with softer light and aspen glow, but I haven't processed it yet.  Frankly I feel as if they still both need tweaking before I get to my final product.  On my calibrated monitor, the darker version I think might print nicely.  When I've done very large ultra high quality prints the photo seems to lighten up a bit for some reason that I'm uncertain about.  So I might check it out in print before I drill down too far.  But I still need to get the sharpening down on the 100%+ crop to go large and bring out all the detail.  That's sort of something that is nearly impossible to examine/analyze in these forums with the 1MB restrictions and what not.