The Watchman

Gallery: Man & NaturePosted February 3, 2012193 views7 comments

This image is of the Watchman in Zion NP in July, 2011. I tried really hard to find a unique take on this icon. I imagine that there are only 100,000 images just like it out there, but I have not seen this before, so I was pretty pleased. I am curious about the white outline around the Watchman. I noticed this outline in a recent cover shot of Outdoor Photographer, but I don't know what caused it. I used lightroom for post processing. Any comments will be appreciated.

Nikon D7000
Tokina 11-16 f2.8
11mm f22 1/40 sec. ISO 400

You can read more about my experience at Zion here:
http://blog.greglessardphotography.com/2011/12/zion-national-park-prickly-pear-cacti.html

Comments

7 comments

Comment posted by Tony Siciliano on February 3, 2012 at 10:27 PM

I don't know what causes it, but I have had the same problem. Darkening the sky seems to make it worse, especially if there is chromatic aberration, so it always pays to correct that before darkening the sky. Other than that, I'm clueless also....

Registered on May 21, 2007, 48 Posts, 33 Comments

Comment posted by Walter Rowe on February 4, 2012 at 2:42 PM

The white outline could be a sharpening halo artifact. Lovely image.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 85 Posts, 314 Comments

Comment posted by Catherine Reilly on February 5, 2012 at 7:58 PM

That's an impressive ridge well enhanced by the angle of view down among the cactus. Feels like I'm there.

Registered on August 16, 2006, 603 Posts, 9192 Comments

Comment posted by Phillip Noll on February 5, 2012 at 9:21 PM

Definitely a unique take on the Watchman! Good job going for something different! In Lightroom, in the Develop mode, you can step back through each of your adjustments until you see that halo disappear. Then you'll know what caused it and you can avoid it in the future. Or you can go into PS and clone it out. The sky looks a bit funky to me. Almost looks hand colored in a way. You might try lightening the blues a little and decrease the cyan(aqua) and increase the purple just a bit and see it the sky looks any more natural. Keep going for the unique!!

Registered on November 17, 2003, 207 Posts, 1083 Comments

Comment posted by Greg Lessard on February 5, 2012 at 10:20 PM

Thank you for the for the comments. Phillip, I will try to figure out what caused the outline and experiment with the sky. Thank you for taking the time to review my image!

Registered on January 14, 2009, 38 Posts, 219 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Seaver on February 6, 2012 at 8:57 PM

Nice shot of the Watchman. I like the cactus across the foreground and the nice clean lighting. The white rim can come from a couple of places depending on your choice of processing. In Adobe Camera Raw, you can get that effect from too much Clarity. If you used unsharp mask in PS for sharpening you can get that effect from too high a radius setting, I've seen folks say that they never use a radius larger than 0.2 - 0.5. If you look closely at the tips of the shrub on the right, you can also see that the tips are whitened.

Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Hartmann on February 11, 2012 at 1:49 PM

Beautiful comp and way to go with the creative positioning. The sky is nice and I like the soft light on the subject.

I’m surprised that no one has commented on what seems to be a soft background. At 11MM and f22 I would think that hyper focus would have brought all of the comp in better focus.

I typically clone out any abortions or lines I see in my photos. It is pretty fast work.

Registered on January 15, 2009, 13 Posts, 772 Comments