A little (a lot) closer to home

Only two shots this time, folks. Spent one final morning with my friends Ed and Faith from Arkansas, and shot sunrise out at Garden of the Gods. On our way out I thought, gee, where's Dan Walters or Kurt Bowman when you need them? Ed and Faith spotted two beautiful mule deer bucks (I turned around in time to see one) with massive racks. Impressive enough to make a special trip to look for them with a longer lens I think. Anyhoo, here's a sunrise shot. The clouds were spectacular before sunrise, but moved away from the mountains a tad by the time the sun came up. This one needs work, but you get the idea.

If there's one thing I wish Canon could figure out, it's how to get their cameras to stop blowing out the reds and oranges. Makes it tough to shoot sunrise in the Garden! Just to make this shot and the one above the least bit presentable, I had to double-process the raw files, one in landscape picture style where Kissing Camels Rock looked positively glow-in-the-dark, and a second in standard picture style with the saturation reduced, just for the red rock. Landscape picture style looks Velvia-esque on all the colors but the bright reds/oranges, but you've really got to work on those colors to make them look less cartoonish.

That is all.

Well, that's why i stopped using Landscape Mode once i picked up LR...
Pretty shots, Todd, will have to go hunting for the bucks!

That's it, I'm selling the photo gear. Any takers?

Killer images, Todd. I really like the colors in the first one.

I know what you mean about Canon cameras and their rendering reds and oranges. I seem to be able to tame them, to some degree, by using the "Camera Neutral" setting in LR and then doing a little further tweaking.

why don't ya just use neutral settings?...in the camera

#1 is sweet with those clouds - haven't seen GOG images for a while here. I know what you mean about Canon sensors and reds, can be frustrating.

Love the light in that first image. Great colors as well!

Great series Todd, that first one is outstanding.

TC, I agree with you about Canons reds/oranges, I have always had problems with those colors more than any others. As far as the pictures go, they just don't cut the mustard with me this time, they are not........lets just say a Caudle IMO.

I have to agree with Jody here.
Those profiles you mention are no longer available in ACR/CS5. Just one camera profile now.

Hi, John. The profiles (Standard, Faithful, Landscape, Neutral, Portrait) are available in CS5 ACR 6.1.

You may not be seeing them because of the camera you use. I ran into this problem because I was trying to find the Vivid profile to no avail. And I never will - with a Canon CR2 raw file.

ACR only shows the profiles that are specific to your camera. If I want to see Vivid, I'll need a Nikon raw file. I learned this from a post by one of the PS authors. Thomas Knoll, I think.

LR3 still has the profiles for my old Rebel XT, but they've never had the profiles for my LX3. Seems to depend on the camera. I have to agree with Todd about reds in Canon's cameras. Canon's choice of red filter in the Bayer array seems to be the culprit here because the red often clips badly in oranges and bright reds even when the overall exposure is perfectly fine.

I like the top image Todd, but like you say the clouds weren't really cooperating with perfect positioning.

Thanks for the info., Lance.
I never much cared for those profiles when they were available, but it was nice to at least have a choice.

Ditto on the dislike of Canon's handling of the orange and red spectrum. Just more excellent work, TC!

Just in case anyone cares, Nikon does the same thing with its Landscape and Vivid presets. Typically, it's in these kinds of shots; low, intense, golden hour light. I had to learn the hard way. I now shoot Neutral and adjust in Raw.