I've spent a little time lately exploring in the La Plata mountains. Well, actually, I spent far more of my time dodging thunderstorms with sleet, hail and snow than I did exploring...but it was nice to be out cavorting with nature anyway. Nothing great, but I thought I'd share a few of my shots starting with the above image of Basin Creek waterfall.
All of the comps are just excellent. I'm going with #2, and #3. The white boles against the green leaves is fantastic. And the red rocks along and in the waterfall are wonderful.The processing is noticeable in 1 and 4. Not quite natural looking.
For "nothing special" you sure got a pleasant bunch of photos. The aspen photo is really nice. I'm pretty much a sucker for moving water shots and really like all the others, too.
All of these are wonderful. I'm also a fan of the aspen photo, the greens are great. I also like the reds of the seasonal waterfall, reminds me of the falls in the Subway at Zion. Great job.
What ya mean nothin' great? All look pretty nice to me. I think #3 is really special! Hey Guy, I was wondering if all the trees around the San Juans are leafed out yet? Just doing some research for a possible spring trip out sometime.
Looks like you had a great day up there!
Like Morris, I favor #'s 2 & 3 for the reasons he outlined.
I also like the last 'cos I think I know the vicinity where you were. I've never seen an image of the more pastoral setting that the river flows through before. Nice lead in to the mountains!
Thanks for the feedback everybody. As always, I appreciate it. Laurie, not all the aspen have leafed out yet. I'm thinking you'd want to wait until the second week of June for that to happen.
Guy, 2 and 4 are excellent. 2 is truely a "classic" springtime shot, gorgeous. 4 is has it all, clouds, great river lead in, spring greens, the comp is spot on; again gorgeous.
I can agree with the over processed look of 1, but 4 looks fine on my monitor.
Great set of images Guy! Love 2 and 4, but 3 is pretty sweet as well. The greens may be a tad oversaturated in 1 and 4, but they are so vibrant in spring. It's really a fine line. Fantastic images tho!
Ok...the lack of love for #1 in particular got me to go back and reprocess it. I reworked it from the original raw and this time utilized Tony K's luminosity painting technique instead of the small dose of S/H recovery I applied in PS. The differences are subtle (and may not make this any better for some of you) but the first thing I noticed when I compared the two was the reddish color shift present in the first version. Me thinks the shift may have been introduced by the S/H tool.
About the vibrancy, remember that your looking at scenes with recently leafed out aspen that have been soaked by frequent rains. Those greens were really popping!
These are all stunning! Reprocessed version of #1 is really sweet! I really wish I was there this week, damn environmental lawyers messed with my shooting schedule!
Yeah, the S/H tool can introduce artifacts and definitely bumps up saturation, as do almost all basic editing steps (Curves, Levels, Contrast, S/H, etc.).
Whenever I use any of those steps, I change the layer blend mode form Normal to Luminosity so that only the Lightness channel is affected by the editing, not the colors. The difference can be striking!
Discussion
26 repliesWhat ya mean nothin' great? All look pretty nice to me. I think #3 is really special! Hey Guy, I was wondering if all the trees around the San Juans are leafed out yet? Just doing some research for a possible spring trip out sometime.
Like Morris, I favor #'s 2 & 3 for the reasons he outlined.
I also like the last 'cos I think I know the vicinity where you were. I've never seen an image of the more pastoral setting that the river flows through before. Nice lead in to the mountains!
Jim
I can agree with the over processed look of 1, but 4 looks fine on my monitor.
Great job.
Craig
About the vibrancy, remember that your looking at scenes with recently leafed out aspen that have been soaked by frequent rains. Those greens were really popping!
Yeah, the S/H tool can introduce artifacts and definitely bumps up saturation, as do almost all basic editing steps (Curves, Levels, Contrast, S/H, etc.).
Whenever I use any of those steps, I change the layer blend mode form Normal to Luminosity so that only the Lightness channel is affected by the editing, not the colors. The difference can be striking!