Autumn colour on Mangrt Pass - with repost

Photographed during Autumn workshop. I'm quite pleased with how 17-40 handles sun star, but flare ghosts are very hard to control in such a detailed photo.
I'm not completely satisfied with processing of this photo, but would prefer to hear your opinions rather than rambling on what I dislike.

17-40, digital, tripod three exposures blended together

Cheers,
Marko

Ohhhh....what an image Marko

Starburst rays and a massive 'Godray', contra-jour imagery at its best imho - stunning

Agree with Andy's 'french' comment

Superb exposure to retain the intricate detail Marko, and the rays and composition make for a wonderful mountain landscape image



Alan

Looks absolutely splendid to me - can't imagine what might be niggling you

A lovely smooth shot with great deep colours and tones. Only suggestion would be to redo the sharpening, the top edge of the mountain is suffering badly, this would really make the image seamless and super smooth! Thats some intense and direct sunlight....

It must be my age, and being 10 years into being an official grumpy old git, but for me the left hand side of the image does not sit happily with the right - the large area of mountain blanketed by the sun ray just unbalances the image for me. Technicals of exposure and timing etc are spot on, but the overall balance of the image just doesn't sing to me.

The shot that I can visualise is a much tighter crop into a squarer or portrait format with the lit up tree tighter into the lower left corner - but as I say that is just my view and I use a white walking stick

I would agree about the square crop

Another vote in favour of the square crop. The left hand side of the image does not add enough to the overall comp, in my opinion. Its a lovely shot though and difficult to get the exposure right so that the trees and mountains are in balance. Well done on a great image.

Paul

yep another one for the square crop then the beautiful tree in the foregound becomes more of a feature but then again, like Mike, I am well into grumpy old git territory

Adrian

Would agree with some off the left,not sure I'd go as far as square though,and the halo on the mountain ridge is something that needs attention,all that aside it's a stunning image

Stu.

W W works for me!

David

Superb image Marko - great star burst and rays. All I can find is the sharpening on the mountains that David points out which is easily sorted. Tristan

Isuspect this is one of thoise images that looks ten times better big, large and on a wall.

Great technique and I like the overall balance myself, although I bet you did a portrait version at the same time too!!



Mark

Cool!!!

Hi Marko,

That sunlight is literally "Heavenly". I like it as is, but agree with David C re the tops of the mountains.

Nice work

Regards

Rob

There are a few comments suggesting the mountain tops need less sharpening. Not sure about this - isn't this just the backlight from the sun spilling over the edge?

Same thoughts as me Jim!!

Would expect specular lighting on the hill crests, although i guess they would appear similar to sharpening halo's at screen sizes

Alan

Marko - when I saw this image early I thought the same as Jim and Alan, and doubly so as I could see no other signs of oversharpening anywhere else on the image.

The more I look at it the more I like it

Hello Marko
I have to say that I like it just as is. Very nice.
Best wishes
Phil

There's a definite artefact halo on the mountain ridge - that's not just backlight overspill. And IMO it needs sorting because it sticks out like a sore thumb!!! It was easily the first thing that I noticed when the image loaded.

Other than that, a very fine image of a beautiful moment in time captured.

The square crop would work well too.

Marko

I like the image as presented and I would not change the composition as I like the way the suns rays lead the eye into the composition.

There is something wrong with the sky / mountain transition and it does not look like a sharpening halo to me. I am looking at this on a laptop and it shows a 1 pixel black edge on the mountains and a 1 pixel white edge on the sky. Presuming that the sky is one of your 3 layers it looks pasted in. It then looks like you have selected the white sky on the underlying layer expanded the selection by 1/2 pixels and then feathered the selection by 2 /4 pixels before removing the dark foreground on the top layer. This would give both a dark and light edge that I am seeing. If this is the case I would select the sky on the light underlying area and feather by on pixel and then inverese the selection and cut away the unwanted area of the foreground. This will leave a thin pale line along the top of the mountains. Then go back to the undeling layer select the white sky and feather by 1 pixel. Switch back to the top layer and use the clone tool to bring the lower edge of the darker sky to cover the thin white band. It is time consuming but it does work.

I hope that this make some sort of sense

John Lee

This is a simply stunning image - the number of replies speaks for itself. I think that the only nit has been picked up on, even though it's interesting that on my work monitor, it wasn't that obvious, but at home it is - I wonder if it's to do with resolution settings? Anyway - this doesn't take away from the fact that this is a fantastic shot!



Mark

Blimey, it looks like you chaps like it! Yes it's over sharpened as I was in a hurry to get to work in time. What bugs me is the flare of 17-40 as I already wrote. I tried to clean ghosts but didn't succeed completely. It's still possible to see green tint in low left side of the photo, where forest is. Another thing was a cyan cast to sky. So I went through it again and while I still wasn't able to clean flare (I'll learn to deal with it on spot), I did some other corrections. What do you think?

Cheers,
Marko