Sublime Colors

Peter,

Sublime? How about electric? Wow, what a show! Interesting though, because to me the sky looks quite natural and believable, but the light being absorbed and reflected on the canyon is what led me to use the work electric. But ya know, I wasn't there and given all the differences in monitors and browsers it wouldn't be fair to offer any suggestions to change the color or saturation. It's truly an amazing sight.

Might be pretty tough to improve this... but I was thinking about getting rid of maybe 1/2 of the foreground rock? Nice texture and color, but to me the show is the light, color of the canyon and sky. The other thing I would do if mine, would be to increase the microcontrast just along the face of the canyon. Not by much at all, but maybe just darkening the deep shadows a skosh. Anyway, just my thoughts. I'd love to have this one to work on!

Lon

Amazing sky Peter. I agree with Lon on the partial crop of the foreground. You surely had some amazing light conditions. Hope the crowds were not too bad..... one of the things I hated the most when visiting the Grand Canyon both north and south. These days I try to avoid situations like that.

Thanks Lon, I see what you mean about the foreground and the light being electric. I actually brightened this up quite a bit as the canyon was in some shadow at this point. I did boost the contrast a bit in the mid canyon, but could see about some more contrast there.

Eva, the good thing about this point was that it was about 20 miles down dirt roads so that kept whatever crowds away. We shared the point with only a handful of others so we had plenty of space to move around and not be shoulder to shoulder

Wow what a show! I don't feel like the foreground rock adds anything here, but the rest is spectacular

Amazing light and scenery. I like the layers and color here.

Here is a quick repost with some suggestions. I cropped the bottom part about half way, but also cropped the sides a bit to avoid more of a square crop. Also boosted the contrast in the canyon wall.

The contrast boost in the re-post is an improvement. Love the intensity of the light and color. Beautiful capture

What a once in a lifetime sunset you captured (as he kicks himself for not attending).
I also prefer the repost, although adding contrast boosted the saturation levels a bit. Try boosting contrast using a 'Luminosity' blend mode in layers rather than 'Normal' blend mode.
You might also consider trying the Image Polish technique usin the Unsharp Mask filter.

Beautiful image Peter, I like your first post. Sweet light, you guys must of had a great show. Very nice work!

Thanks John, I didn't even think of using a luminosity blend mode, I'll have to do that when I rework it for print.

Kyle, we did have ourselves quite the weekend in terms of quality light. This was probably the best light we had, although we had some pretty special light that morning at cape royal.

Gorgeous light and color Peter. This has a nice subtle glow to it. Nice job.

sweet light & colors, i like the dreamy effect in this image

well done

Peter, This is beautiful! That light is something special as are the conditions you captured here. I like the repost with the crop off the bottom, but otherwise like the original and the wider view. Had to be special being there for this, and you captured it so well.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

This is really exceptional! I actually prefer the original version, although both are equally stunning. Beautiful lighting on the clouds and canyon---must have been amazing to be standing there soaking it all in. I do wonder if the saturation could be toned down a tad in the canyon? But as Lon said, "given all the differences in monitors and browsers it wouldn't be fair to offer any suggestions to change the color or saturation...".

Thanks everyone! I didn't touch the saturation sliders on this one surprisingly, but with the various layers of contrast and such it added quite a bit of saturation that is somewhat difficult to get perfect. I've toned it down in various versions of the image but when I do so it looks more purple than red, which is not what I would want the canyon to look as it was more red.

Peter,

thanks for taking the time and reposting. The contrast looks great to me now. Just my personal taste, but I'm not sure you needed to crop the sides all that much.... nothin' wrong with a 4:5 ratio...

Lon

What a great light show you caught! Love the color, and I like Lon's suggestion of cropping off half of the foreground rock. Oops, see you did that already. I still go with Lons saying to leave it at a 4x5 and the contrast is a bit too much for my tastes now. I would put it somewhere right between. But, that's just what I would do.

Thanks Morris. I did another revision that kept the 4x5 ratio with the crop and where the contrast didn't saturate it so much that I am hoping to get printed soon.

Peter, repost with higher contrast looks better to me... the saturation looks very intense to me, but as Lon said, difficult to comment on that given all the technicalities involved... this sure is one hell of a killer sunset

Oh yeaaa thats what I am talkin about. I like the contrast in the repost but prefer to crop just a tad bit on the top right that that small could is on the top left. I think that will give better balance. Also as Lon said, a 4x5 ratio will work for this. Nice shot man.

Love the re-post! You really did have some light there. Marvellous!