Repost

I'm blaming the eggnog
Upon further review, my post of the Christmas Eve sunrise on Pikes Peak was less than stellar.

I don't know if this is stellar but I think it's better and I wanted to make up for the wee-hours-of-the-morning processing evident in the other version.

As always, comments and critiques are welcome!

Kalin,

I like this image's color and composition the most of the recent shots that were taken up on RRR including my own.

The others just did not have the foreground element of interest that this one does IMO.

The only think I am not sure about yet on RRR is the perspective it yields of Pikes Peak. It seems to almost flatten the peak across the frame from left to right. Your perspective does offer more though with the foreground rock and mid ground ridge that is for sure.

I guess I just need to explore up around that area more. Thanks for the repost and nice image.

- Derek

Much improved Kalin though I still want to see the shadows opened up a little more. What lens did you use?
JK

The first one was a bit too dark, but you've redeemed yourself well here, Kalin. Not sure I like the 50/50 split, but the elements are there.

The foreground looks ok on my new Dell Inspiron 17" laptop which has high resolution. I can still see color and detail in the trees. But I have been noticing that on images like this the monitor makes a big difference. For example my Dell monitor at work renders whole areas 'black' which have visible microcontrast and subtle colors I can see right away on my screen at home.

Definitely better than the last one, Kalin. Very nice.

I like this one better than the other one Kalin. I like the way the light highlights the ridge and the peak in the distance.

Todd, I agree about the 50/50 but I liked the radial cloud effect so much that I didn't even think about the 50/50 proportion. Usually I'm pretty tight with the skies.

John,Derek, I just tried a couple of things which leads me to believe that proofing for the web is futile - Just hope for the best. The master image has the level of foreground detail that I want for the early morning conditions. So I made a 100% crop to show that. When viewed in a non-color managed viewer the shadows were blocked up like the post. So I decided to softproof to sRGB thinking maybe I was losing something in the conversion. The sRGB version was nearly identical to my ProPhotoRGB master. So the real culprit seems to be lack of color management in the browser. I could alter the image to softproof to the browser but that seems like a black hole.
I'd be interested to hear other's experience getting good web versions. I haven't had too many problems before but they crop up.

Derek, I have a pano from this location on the same morning with the moon that I'm going to post to ESS. I think you'll like that perspective.

Camera info:
Canon 20D, Canon 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 @ 10mm

I love the richness of the blue sky, although it might be a bit underexposed (on my desktop monitor) I like it just the way it is. Overall, very beautiful and eye catching

I love the clouds in the sky (not that there are any clouds on the ground in this shot )
Got some nice warm colors in there too