Ice Lake Basin - Summer Morning

In late August I spent a delightful morning watching the storm clouds clear out of the Ice Lakes Basin.

I had to significantly expand the histogram for this low contrast, overcast morning. I'm not sure about the resulting hues in the greens. What do you guys think?

This was shot with 200mm from the 4WD trail to Clear Lake.

This looks like it could be an awesome image, but the postprocessing looks funky to me.
Almost looks like a pastel sketch to my eyes. Wouldn't know where to begin to offer suggestions.

Any chance you can post the original version?

I agree with John. The image has a lot of potential; I love the way the clouds are draped over the mountain, but something is off. Have you tried playing with the saturation? What about a B&W conversion?

Did you use shadow/highlight? That can lead to some strange effects after about +10 or 12.

My first kneejerk reaction was "Sweet!" My second was, "Hmmm... weird color and contrast." I love the scene, but I have to agree with others about the processing. I was surprised to read that conditions were overcast, I would have thought direct sunlight. Perhaps reworking it to retain some of the overcast look could be a productive avenue to try.

I LOVE IT! Put some swirly big brush strokes in it and sign it Vincent Van Gogh! I think it makes a nice peice of art.
John

Thanks for the feedback. I have a similar reaction to the color and contrast when I put the image away for a while and come back to look at it.

Dave, ZERO shadow/highlight adjustment.

This is basically an exercise in expanding contrast.
The light levels were very low and diffuse. The original appears as if it were shot through fog.
Exposure was to the right @ f8, 1//4 sec, ISO 100
The resulting histogram was 95% between 130 and 200. i.e. absolutely nothing in the lower half of the histogram.
This is NOT a direct sunlight exposure.

My primary adjustment was expanding the histogram by moving the black point in Lightroom.
This resulted in the current color saturations, contrast, and tonal range.

So, I think I'll give it a try in Photoshop, but ultimately it may be a problem of the colors and tones blocking because of the extreme exapnsion required. Unfortunately those clouds were no longer around when the sun came out.

This has all the makings of an incredible image. As others mentioned, it just needs work. How about working the contrast in PS, and making sure that when doing a curves or levels adjustment layer, the blend mode is set to Luminosity. (I don't own LR, so I don't know if it's possible to do it there.) Then do your color work with a H/S/L layer.

Perfect candidate for Tony Kuyper's luminosity masks ... or at least that's one approach I'd try. I'd select the lighter tones, and apply a contrast bump. Brings in a little "sunshine". Nothing in LR can achieve this same affect, that I'm aware of. TK's masks are one of the few reasons I go over to Photoshop these days.

Masking off the scattering of snow fields would also help when working with the histogram - something I often do for summer alpine shots.

I'm with the others on the processing, Bill. There's an incredible image here just wanting to bust out.

The clouds draped over the one formation is too cool !

Tons of potential in this one, Bill. I'll be looking for your re-worked version. Those clouds are some of the coolest I've ever seen.

I also think luminosity masks will be the answer on this one. Another option might be to increase contrast on a layer in luminosity blending mode to see if you can move the brightness up and down without affecting the tone. Right now, I think the contrast boost has caused the saturation to go weird. Of all the colors, the greens look least strange to me.