Thanks Bill for the kind comments and constructive criticism. Good info on Bruce's books and for sure i should get it and read it. I've read all of Ron Bigelow's fine series on sharpening as well as jeff's and PKS' PDFs. So I understand the basics fairly well.
I used both the haze cutter in certain areas of the middle ground on this and as I do on almost every image, made a visible stamp of the underlying layers and applied Michael's Local Contrast Enhancement (USM @ 20, 50, 0) and vary the opacity to taste. With this I'll occasionally use the blend if mode as well to prevent too much additional black from being introduced.
Basically, this is almost interchangeable with the Mac Holbert high pass method of mid-tone boost which I think is almost the same as the Bruce method you described.
You're very definitely right though about getting Bruce's book eventually and gaining even more knowledge of this most crucial of post-processing skills.
As for the question of photographic skill vs. PP knowledge, you guessed it, it's PKS alone that made the magic!! LOL!! Even more reason to rush out and get it!
really, i think both are part and parcel of the same ability these days as a digital photographer. ansel was a genius in the field and moreso in the darkroom. without a good starting point (composition, light, exposure, focus, subject) you're sunk. Good PP is just surmounting the limitations of the media and optimizing the beauty that you found before you.
I'm a traditionalist in that I believe the true art of the landscape photographer is finding the moment (and the huge effort and skill set that entails) and capturing it well. Nature and the universe are the true master artists and too much creative license, for my taste, is just too self-absorbed. creative license has its place in almost all aspects of photography and i love and applaud people's art. it's just that when it comes to the landscape, i think we should be attentive to the beauty that exists.
Sure, I'm guilty as any in sometimes over-romanticizing nature. but we've all been trained over the last three decades to expect our landscapes to have punch, immediacy, vibrancy, and saleability (thank you velvia!) and it may be some time before the infinitely more real and documentary (variable and more accurate WB is just one example), wider gamut, and arguably less saturated potential of digital comes to be accepted as the standard.
Until then, large format film photographers and their film stocks will continue to set the standard and we will romanticize to the point of velvia and no further (!!) lest we be accused of overcooking in PS!! Some day we may return to the less saturated, wider gamut film color style of say Elliot Porter whose seminal work in the 40s-60s seems these days much flatter and less immediate. I saw a wonderful retrospective exhibition in LA last year and that was my first impression. After that, I began to appreciate the incredible subtlety and nuanced color palette but once trained to velvia, it's hard to untrain the mind's and eye's expectations!!
We could probably start a whole thread on this topic alone . . . But this one's been hijacked enough from my original post what the heck!! LOL
