Well, sort of... Clouds are somewhat hiding Mt. Cashmere, a peak in the Icicle Canyon above Leavenworth. I drove up Mountain Home Road hoping for some good sunset color and this is what developed. This area is a burned out slope but the trees have mostly fallen over and what is left is buckbrush and some wildflowers. The hillside on the L (Wedge Mountain) had a few road cuts that I removed.
You got some great layering going on here, but the sky looks a bit funky and washed out and the mountain on the right looks like it was cut and pasted into place (more due to the sky funkishness than anything else). The cloud at top right being darker than the mountain below it doesn't help either.
I was over that way last Thursday shooting on the Sauer's Mountain Trail. Definitely one of, if not the best year for balsams I've ever witnessed, but after shooting to the west at sunset on that side of the mountains, I'm really not sure that anything that close to Leavenworth is ever going to yield good results in the evening without an absurdly dramatic sky - the mountains just block too much of the soft light necessary to push a scene like this over the edge. Sunrise, otoh, should be epic.
Marc, it's a nice scene but honestly, the blending work is way too obvious here. Selection lines are clearly visible around the mountain at right and the snow up top went really strange. I agree with Brian on the sky. So much more could be made of this one with the right processing. Think painting, dodging and burning instead of lassoing, selecting, cutting and pasting when you blend. A different approach could make it way easier and more natural.
Great shot Marc, I love the contrast of warm and cool tones as well as the excellent composition. The blending is much smoother on the second one but I like the flowers in the foreground better in the fist one because they just look a little sharper. Perhaps you just forgot to apply web sharpening?
Discussion
6 replies4 image blend.
I was over that way last Thursday shooting on the Sauer's Mountain Trail. Definitely one of, if not the best year for balsams I've ever witnessed, but after shooting to the west at sunset on that side of the mountains, I'm really not sure that anything that close to Leavenworth is ever going to yield good results in the evening without an absurdly dramatic sky - the mountains just block too much of the soft light necessary to push a scene like this over the edge. Sunrise, otoh, should be epic.