A Few (Last) Dollars More

A couple more from my San Jaun trip this fall. The first image was an old shed coming down the Last Dollar pass Rd toward Telluride. The second, was done not far from Woods Lake. CC always welcome...you guys gave me some welcome feedback on my last image post. Thanks,
Joe Rogers

Now the Woods Lake image

The shadow areas (and darker regions overall) in the first one are really opaque and lacking in detail, and the image looks too contrasty overall. But that second one is really nice. I think I have the same shot with cloudy conditions.

In the first, many of the clouds are overexposed while the rest of the image is slightly underexposed (histogram confirms this), resulting in the contrasty look that Todd mentioned. Bringing the brightness up in the areas without skies will make this 'pop' quite a bit more.

The second is much better as you zeroed right in to the good stuff and crafted a nice composition at the same time. Hopefully, the full size image is sharp from fore to aft, as this compressed version looks a bit soft everywhere except the trees in front.

It's funny, I'm looking at these on my laptop and the first one looks excellent on an LCD display. Just goes to show how different monitors present what we see.

Okay John....I see your point. See if this is a good way to attack the problem. I went back to the raw file and processed one for the sky and one for the land area and converted to Tifs. I will take to PS and blend with masking and make adjustments on the combined image, such as tweak the contrast of highlight and shadow areas. Or am I making this too hard? Young Grasshopper is asking...
Todd, I am kind of confused by your two comments....please elaborate.
Thanks,
Joe Rogers

I think that's an excellent way to re-process this one, Joe. That way you can concentrate on making the land area really sing in ACR while paying no attention to the sky at all, and vice versa with another file for the sky area. Should be a super easy blend to accomplish, too.
If you need to do more work in PS, then you can always select the sky, invert the selection and then continue to edit just the land areas if needed (and vice versa, of course).

I like the scene on the first image but on my monitor, like John's, the sky looks blown. He gives some good suggestions on how to fix it. The second image has nice color and much better exposure.

Cool barn and scenic setting in the first. I agree with the others about the too high contrast. I'd like to see your repost with a blend. Love the comp in #2 and the pattern you chose to frame. Only small nit is the lack of leaves in the top grouping. Last Dollar is so cool and peaceful to travel.

Okay John....I see your point. See if this is a good way to attack the problem. I went back to the raw file and processed one for the sky and one for the land area and converted to Tifs. I will take to PS and blend with masking and make adjustments on the combined image, such as tweak the contrast of highlight and shadow areas. Or am I making this too hard? Young Grasshopper is asking...
Todd, I am kind of confused by your two comments....please elaborate.
Thanks,
Joe Rogers

I really like the composition of the colorful valleys leading the eye to the barn.

I notice a uniformity of the brightness level across the aspen. The different colors make the picture work, but in B&W this picture might go blah. I don't know, try it to see. Along those lines, modern lenses don't vignette much, so your edges are just as bright as the central portion. These aren't criticisms, just observations.

Really like the position of the tees in the second image.

You could also try simply backing off the exposure until the clouds have detail, then bring up the shadows with Shadow/Highlight control (or Fill Light in LR). You may actually have to increase the contrast slightly following these adjustments.

The colors and comp of the second one look very nice to my eyes

Great barn in that first shot, do you have any close-ups of it?