Fall Dallas Divide - One I've worked and worked

I took this shot 3 years ago with my D200. I have worked and reworked this shot a bunch of different times, probably too much. I think I finally have it where I'm satisfied. Vincent Versace wrote about overdoing it to the point of eventually breaking pixels. Honest opinion, is this too much?

Russ
[www.AlpineGalleria.com]

Russ the comp is really beautiful and I love the color of the foreground aspen trees. The background mountains have a little too much greenish hue for my taste and clouds seem a bit cooked. I'm actually wondering what kind of look you are trying to process to before I weigh in with a yea or nay. I'm assuming the overexposed clouds are your target for processing?

Russ, this looks like a beautiful scene you have captured overall. I am wondering if you cropped this from the original or this is how you shot it? My issue is you show just enough of the mountain tips on the right to make me want to see them all. I would either go for a tight crop to put emphasis on the trees and have the mountains be a true backdrop, or show the entire mountain range. As for processing, there is definitely too much contrast between your blacks and whites. I see things totally in shadow with no detail at all, while there seems to be whites blown out as Kane pointed out. Take a look at your histogram and see if you can pull these back a bit.

Kane, what I spent mot of the time working on was the trees in the foreground. On my monitor the mountains were too blue so I pulled the blue out some. I am not seeing the green, I have not calibrated my monitor, sounds like it might be time. I'm not sure hoe to tone down the clouds in the upper corners at this point. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for your input.

Koveh, this is a crop from the original shot but in that shot there was not much of anything above the upper tight side except clouds. Since it was pretty boring I started processing for one of the "no sky" type pictures. My wife mentioned the same thing about the top. I'll see what happens pulling some of the contrast out. Thanks again for the thoughtful comments!

Russ
www.AlpineGalleria.com

Russ, I like the overall comp. My comments would ditto Kovehs...that cloud in the upper right is pretty blown out and I would like to see more of the mountaintops. I do understand that yo didn't have much to work with on top. In all honesty, I would put this location on my list of places to return to when the conditions are a little better. It sort of reminds me how I've been trying to get a certain Bear Lake shot for 3 years now but conditions haven't been right so I keep going back hoping for that iconic shot.

Here's a quick stab at bringing out some detail in the mid-ground. I'm not sure there is any reigning in the blown out clouds at this point. Any better?

Jack, I know what you mean about keep trying. This spot is about 6+ hours from my house and of course only in fall colors for a short time. That's probably the reason I keep reworking what I already have. Again thanks so much for all the great advice.

2nd one looks good to me. You might darken the pine trees on the middle left up a little to match the other pine trees. I disagree with other comments about going back or including more mountains. The light dusting of snow on the mountain is perfect and the clouds add a nice touch. It would be tough to get better conditions. The crop draws your eye down to the trees in the foreground, and I think it draws more attention to the textures and colors of the mountains. Including more of the mountains would make it more of a traditional, postcard-type shot, but I'd rather see something like this with your own take on the scene. If anything, the bottom is more distracting to me, with some trees just barely protruding into the image. Not much you can do there unless you cloned them out, though I personally wouldn't do that drastic of an alteration to a photo and I think it's still okay as is.

Very painterly quality.

What a beautiful scene! Grant nailed it with his positive comments. I don't find the trees at the bottom to be a distraction at all, though. Howver, I would recommend cropping the right inward 1/2 to 1 inch to lose (or lessen) that blown out area in the top right corner. A scene this beautiful doesn't need that at all.

Overall, a very beautiful scene, Russ. I like the comp and the lighting, but a little vignetting on the top and bottom might alleviate some of the other's concerns. From a luminosity standpoint, I think I'd prefer a rendition that was 1/2 way between the two images. The 2nd one loses some of the dramatic lighting that is so appealing in the first, but in the 2nd, the mid ground forest isn't such a black hole. What bugs me the most though are the "broken pixels" as you put it. The patches of fog in the upper left and right, are very posterized and there is a lot of noise (maybe posterization) in the band of forest that goes from the left mid ground to about 2/3 of the way to the right. Maybe you should do some test prints and see what looks best.

Paul, thanks for taking time to comment. Great idea on the vignetting! I'll have to try it. Like I've said before I'm always drawn to the darker shots so the first is still my favorite. I do see that the forest middle is too dark to make anything out. I'm thinking more and more that I need to calibrate my monitor. Whenever I print I almost always have to give things at least a half stop more exposure.

Russ
http://www.AlpineGalleria.com

A very unique and stellar shot, nicely done!