Post Processing Critique w/Repost

Been working on this one for a while. Would like to get some opinions on the post processing. Do you think it is too dark? On my screen at full size there is some slight detail in the darkest portions (left center). I'm not too concerned about the lack of detail in the darkest areas as it was getting pretty dark when I shot the photo. Would like to see what you all think. Fire away!!

Wow that sure is a nice scene to have photographed. It is a bit dark for me (and I like my images on the darker side). I think you could easily brighten up the fore and mid ground even if there is little detail in the darkest areas. I think the sky and peak are good the way they are so you might want to try layer masks and blends. The other thing I notice is there seems to be a light band going across the sky, not sure if that was natural or some sort of phenomena or even a grad line. If you don't mind, perhaps I can make a feeble attempt at trying to process this one? Might have a few ideas to help make this pop. Send me in email if you would like.

It's all about presentation. There is obviously detail in the darkest areas, but they don't show as well with a white background. On a black background this would still be a darker image, but so much less than with the white here. I wish we had the option of a black background on the forum. So many of my images look better when viewed on the dark grey of PS or Bridge than they do on a white background. And, I like mine a little darker than most.

Since this is SOOO dark, I don't think you should keep it. Clean it off of your hard drive. You could do this by sending me the RAW file so I could keep it for you if you decided to try to save it later.

Seriously, what a great sky, and the glow on the aspen is just as sweet.

Do you have a darker background on your website? If so, I hope you upload it there to be seen as it should be.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. For some reason, last night I thought it looked OK but today I think its too dark! So I reworked it a bit. How's this?

Oh, that light band is real! It's in the raw file and there were lots of light rays and shadows cast by the clouds as the sun was setting that night.

(And sorry Morris but I think this one is staying on my HD! )

I think you hit the proper exposure with your edit.

If it were my image, I would probably clone out those two blownout patches of blue sky on the far left.

WOAH!!! What a shot! Was that from the epic "Friday sunset" a week ago? If so, I witnessed and photographed it from the Cimarrons and could see that there'd be some happy photogs shooting under Sneffels!

The second post is much better. I'd be tempted to coax even more brightness out of the middle area, but it's certainly fine how it is.

Wonderful light and comp. Second is defiinitely better, and I'm with Jack about adding a bit more light to the middle.

Yes Jack, this was the Friday night sunset! Must have been 25-30 photogs lined up along the road into the Dallas Creek Valley. Wonderful evening!

I originally had much more brightness in the midrange aspens but it looked a little "cooked" to me to I backed them off a bit. Maybe I'll play around with it some more.

Thanks to everyone for the input and helping me get the most out of this image!

Your edit is much better than the first one, maybe adding a bit more brightness as Jack suggested. Very fine image! "That Friday night sunset" is going to go down in folklore from all the different photogs that were in the area.

Spot-on!!!

Hi Phil, I'm late to this game but thought I could jump into the conversation with my opinion. I still think the overall image is a wee bit too dark. I recalibrated my monitor just to make sure I was seeing your vision for this excellent image and still came away wanting more detail. Lastly, have you considered cropping some sky? My personal preference would be to crop about the top 20% of the sky. There seems to be a borderline blown-out portion of sky in the upper area that in my opinion doesn’t really add anything to the shot.

Excellent! The re-post is great...

Simply majestic. Talk about the right place at the right time! I love the light and the composition you captured. Although I like the re-edit, I also believe that a bit more light in a couple of places would be optimal. I heartliy agree with Bill re: 'losing' those bright bits of distracting blue sky. There's also some merit in a crop of the sky, as the orange cloud (as beautiful as it is) tends to draw one's eye up to that corner of the image.
No matter what you do, I'd love to see a final version of this one because it's so well worth it. Great work here, Phil!

I'm late to comment, as work (real work; the "day job") is taking too much time these days. Phil, that's an amazing image. I agree with Kane and John that opening up the middle ground even more would help, so long as the file holds up (some cameras do better with opening shadows than others, as we know...).

I'd try to bring up the immediate foreground / very bottom a touch, and even increase some of the saturation there as well, to try to balance the intense section of aspens. You don't want to overshadow those, as you still want the viewer's eye to be pulled into the image.

I'd bring up the high end of the middle ground with the aspens as well, but only in brightness/luminance.

I'd try to work up the darkest portions. For me, a technique that can work well is to use photoshop's shadow/highlights command and push it just a bit, then use a second adjustment of curves to bring back down the very darkest bits while leaving the "merely dark" bits alone. You want a mostly linear curve with a little dip at the bottom.

The most jarring bit to me, actually, is the sharp transition from the lit clouds just above the peaks to the clouds above. I'd try to smooth that out a little bit. I understand that it's natural, but it looks a bit too close to haloing.

I'd also darken the top edge (while trying to keep the colors intact). Just a little edge burn there.

Sorry if that's too specific, or comes across as overly critical. I don't mean it to be. It's an awesome image, and one that dearly makes me wish I could get out to CO some fall (and then get some great light/weather as well...).

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! I'll be reworking this image to see what I can do to brighten it up a bit.