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John Ippolito
05-13-2013, 02:01 PM
Baboquivari Peak, Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, Arizona

I was just passing through, and the morning was quite long in the tooth for light, but I was taken with the feel of great space, and dry grasses with the mountains as a backdrop. I tried to arrange the bushes to enhance the feeling of depth.


D800, Nikon 70-200 f4 VR @ 105mm, ISO 100, f/10, 1/80, crop from top and bottom only

Jay Sheinfield
05-13-2013, 05:29 PM
Hi John,
The bushes make this work for me. Really like their placement in the frame against the mountain top, and they do provide a strong sense of depth and interest. The layers of grass, mountain, and sky are wonderful. Well seen!

Diane Miller
05-13-2013, 05:50 PM
Very nice subject, but I'm struck by what looks like too much Clarity (or the like) in the clouds. For me, a more natural look would complement the image. And the blue sky seems a little too saturated. I wonder if a tweak of the initial color temp would be a benefit? Possibly working on the color would make the cloud look less enhanced.

The top half is fairly dark and the bottom half is fairly light; a closer balance might be something to explore.

Rachel Hollander
05-13-2013, 06:44 PM
Hi John - I can see the painting influence again. Nicely composed. I see a slight halo where the sky meets the mountains, most noticeable around the tallest peak.

TFS,
Rachel

John Ippolito
05-13-2013, 06:50 PM
Jay, Diane, and Rachel - thanks for your honest comments and suggestions.:S3: I spent most of the PP on getting the grasses to look true in contrast, ignoring the sky. I'll play with this a bit to fix the gliches.

Diane Miller
05-13-2013, 07:02 PM
I had to play with it.

John Ippolito
05-13-2013, 08:02 PM
Thanks for giving it a whirl, Diane:S3: Sky saturation looks better and more uniform, but a bit of noise is present. Mountains look just a bit a bit too bright in tone. Somewhere between the two I think. Thanks for you efforts and suugestions for improvement !

Andrew McLachlan
05-13-2013, 08:39 PM
Hi John, I like this scene...the two bushes are well placed and you did very well with getting the grasses and the mountain range looking their best. The sky does look a little too blue to me and I see the slight halo that Rachel sees. A few minor tweaks and you are there. Nice work!

John Ippolito
05-13-2013, 08:41 PM
Repost with sky desaturated, tonal adjustment.

Diane Miller
05-13-2013, 10:02 PM
Still a bit light on the bottom, for me.

The noise in my post was because I worked on your JPEG. You won't get it working on a real file.

Vivaldo Damilano
05-14-2013, 01:36 AM
Excellent composition and love the FG grass and bushes. The sky looks a lot better in the repost and the image looks to be better balanced however I would still lighten sky slightly and darken the FG grass.

Morkel Erasmus
05-14-2013, 02:47 PM
Nice scene and the light was well handled, though not ideal, John. :t3
I like the simplistic composition, but my initial feeling was the same as Diane - of an unbalanced exposure disparity between sky and foreground.
The repost is better but still not there for me...there's also some blue showing up in the shaded parts of the peaks.

Steve Kaluski
05-15-2013, 07:42 AM
Hi John, I really like this and the contrasting colours work nicely juxtapose to each other. In addition the crop works to, with the split ratio. I do see some likeness to your Cheetah posting in terms of 'style'. Just looking at the OP I just think you pushed the Blues a tad too much, perhaps in HSL? By dropping the blue, and even the reds in the mountains, applying some NR to the sky and an inverted Channel curves adjustment to the mountains perhaps works in the right direction and gives a bit more clarity & depth to the range?

TFS
Steve

Anette Mossbacher
05-16-2013, 03:32 AM
HI John,

I agree with the others on this one. I just repost this one I did. I haven't read Steve comment than, was not that far down than. I just took the RP.
I took out the blue in the shadows of the mountain, about -62% blue in saturation adjustment. Than I open a second saturation adjustment, blue to -43% and selectively took the blue-ish out the the clouds. Opene the selective color adjustment and adjusted the whites to the clouds. Might a bit to much.
That was set, black -7%, yellow to -1.
But for sure would try Steve suggestions there.

Ciao
Anette

John Ippolito
05-18-2013, 01:08 AM
Thanks everyone for your feedback, and Anette for your last valiant effort... I liked the scene so much, that I tried too hard to make something, and pull more out of a bright daylight image. Seldom a wise choice.

Steve: What is HSL ?

James Fuller
05-26-2013, 04:56 PM
Thanks everyone for your feedback, and Anette for your last valiant effort... I liked the scene so much, that I tried too hard to make something, and pull more out of a bright daylight image. Seldom a wise choice.

Steve: What is HSL ?

I think HSL = Hue/Saturation Layer

I really like the composition here, the foreground bushes work well with the highest peak in the background.