American Basin - C&C Please

Well, as all of you move on to late summer/fall pictures, I'm still trying to process the ones I took at the end of July. Not much time to do photo stuff with a growing family and work, but I finally got to one I took on my 5 day trip in the San Juans this summer.

This photo is a 3 image stitch with 3 different raw conversions on each image (all blended manually). I'm hoping I didn't go over the top with the conversions and would like your opinions on the final result.

Thanks for looking.

EDIT 09/13/07: Swapped out the original image with the reworked one since I can't post the revised image in a reply.

I like the comp and light balance, but the over-sharpening prevents a solid critique.

I agree with Dave. The light balance looks fine, but the sharpening actually has the effect of making the foreground look out of focus or hard to focus on - at least on my laptop at work. I haven't tried to view the image larger than it appears in the post.

Lots of potential though.

Guys, I tend to agree with you on the sharpening, but I can't seem to find a good balance for an image at this small size. If I go any less the foreground looks even less out of focus (but it's definitely not), but as Dave said it looks like it could be over-sharpened now. The JPEG conversion didn't help matters either.

Thanks for you opinions.

Hi Craig,

Nice shot! Your comp is great but I think you need to work on the processing. The blend from dark to light around the mountains in the background looks really fake to me. Those mountains still in the shadow area are way too bright. I would suggest leaving that whole area much darker and doing a more gradual fade to foreground brightness.

Sorry, I have to agree with Jack. The sharpness doesn't bother me too much, but the blending of shadows and highlights has gone too far - it is especially evident in the halo appearing between the glowing mountains and the ones that should be in the shade. Everything also appears a bit oversaturated, and for a Velvia lover like me that's saying something.

I have to agree that both the sharpening and the blending are overdone. I would recommend that you try blending this photo as an HDR image. That being said, I would go lightly on the adjustments as to not create the same (or worse) effect as you have above. Not sure if that's a possibility with your version of PS (CS2 or 3 are HDR capable), but if not, then try Photomatix. I think it's a great photo, just needs a little retooling.

Craig, I'm really interested to see what you can do with this. Don't get discouraged ( I know I have before). I'm also planning (when I get time) to try some HDR panos where I blend or HDR each image in the stitch.

How are you approaching this? I've thought about working on the exposure for each image before stitching. This appears to offer a lot of control but also challenges getting the exposure and transition of light to work across the images. I've also been looking at building the pano first, one for each exposure, then blending or HDRing the three panos into one. I haven't completed one under either process in order to compare.


In any case, I think its great that we have the ability to work with images this way until we get what we envision. Can you imagine doing this in the color darkroom? My wet color experience is very limited but I don't think I'd be making nearly as many images.
Good Luck. Show us what you come up with.

Thanks everyone. I'm wondering about something other than the sharpening now. It seems 2 people like the lighting, but 3 don't. I went back and forth on the foreground being too light, but decided to go to the lighter side. Perhaps another go is in order with the foreground darker, but is the foreground too light or are the mtns too dark as I don't think going to much darker in the foreground is what I really want to do I think I'll fix the sharpening and see if that changes things for folks first; at least that's the easiest thing to fix first and it is bothering everyone.

Kalin, I'm blending before stitching and it seems to work great as I haven't seen any additional stitching/blending errors once the images are put together. I think my problem is just not getting the exposures quite right. On my monitor at least, the lighting in this image is very close to how I experienced it while standing on the mountain, but perhaps a bit opened up to see more details in the shadows. (perhaps too much )

Don't worry about me getting discouraged. Since this is the first time I tried the blending thing, I kind of expected it to be off a little at least. The problem with this stuff is you stare at it for so long that you kind of lose touch with what you are doing and need another opinion to point out things you are now missing. I fully expected all of you to let me know your opinions and I value all of them, so the more the better.

Keep em coming,
Craig

Craig,
Have you looked at Marc Adamus's web sharpening technique?
http://pacificnw.naturephotographers.net/tips/photoshop.htm

I find it works extremely well.
I think with the suggestions you've gotten from the other folks that this will turn out to be a stunning image.
Paul

Paul, thanks for the Adamus tip. It doesn't say what interpolation method to use, but I think I liked Bicubic the best on the downsizing steps.

In any case I have modified the image with a little of all the suggestions. The sharpening did the most for the web presentation, but I also brightened the mountains and darkened the foreground. I didn't change the saturation, but the mountain lightening gives that impression. Let me know what you think of the revised version (I posted over the original image shown in the first post on 09/13/07)

I think this is better, especially the flowers in the foreground - sharpness-wise. The blue flowers might still be a bit oversaturated. I think there is still a halo between the sunlit mountains and the foreground ridges.

I understand what you mean about trying to make the image "how you saw it". I think this is going to be the big challenge or obstacle as HDR techniques progress and grow acceptance. Obviously our eyes see more of a dynamic range than film or sensors and that's what we're trying to kinda duplicate with HDR. But at the same time, typical evaluation of images is based on what film can do. I wonder if some of the evaluation criteria will change over time. At the same time, our eyes adjust to light and white balance so quickly that it may be true that our 'memory' of what the scene looked like is brighter or more balanced than what the actual dynamic range of the scene is - our eyes/brain equalize things more. So maybe we shouldn't try to get too close to that vision. Not sure that all makes sense, but I think good HDR images strike a fine balance between the asthetics of a good (maybe contrasty) film image and the broader image in our mind. Where I think the HDR technique can really shine, vice simply opening up the dynamic range, is capturing greater detail in the highlights and shadows, within a more standard 4-5 stop range, and bring out those details.
Good luck and have fun playing!

Kalin, which blue flowers still look oversaturated to you? The columbine, blue bells or larkspur? When reworking the image I noticed that halo too. I'm taking care of that, but it will require redoing the whole stitch so that will wait for another night.

I agree about HDR. I really just want to use it for better details in the shadows and highlights. I think just about everyone is programmed on how a photograph "should look" due to the past 50 or so years of prints. Digital definitely changes all of that due to the blending possibilities of different exposures and computer darkrooms. I also believe you're on to something in regards to "the evaluation criteria" changing over time. It will be interesting to see how those changes take place and how close they will resemble "what we saw" when taking the image.

The patch of blue bells in the middle look a little heavy on the sat to me. But that is a nice, dense, grouping, so it may just be my own bias.Overall, I like the flower colors.