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Lyle Gruby
08-20-2013, 01:33 PM
Shot this while in Monument Valley. The light was beautiful and I sort of saw the comp out the window of my car. I blended it using luminosity masks. That definitely saves tons of time and effort when trying to paint around hard edges. Thanks Morkel for your help with that. All C&C welcome.

Techs:
D3S
16-35 @ 16mm
f/16
ISO 200

Morkel Erasmus
08-21-2013, 05:11 PM
I love seeing scenes from this place. You've caught a nice sunrise here and I love the composition with the distant buttes framed by the closer ones. :5
I felt it needed some "oomph" so I selectively added some local contrast enhancement in this repost. I don't mind the bright spot around the sun as it looks natural as the eye would see it.

Lyle Gruby
08-21-2013, 06:56 PM
Thanks morkel. I really like the added contrast. I still have it open in photoshop and that's what I did after posting here. I tried to edit the original post but couldn't so I just left it alone. Thanks for taking the time. I tried to find original comps when I was there. This is my second favorite. I'm going to re-edit the other and I'll post it here soon. Again, thanks for all your help.

dankearl
08-22-2013, 12:13 AM
While I like the sky, I think the backlit monuments look flat.
Maybe another 10 minutes to the sunset?

Jerry van Dijk
08-22-2013, 02:05 PM
Hi Lyle, well spotted, I really like the composition. The moving clouds (low shutterspeed?) provide some nice leading lines. Agree with Dan about the flat look of the monuments. Maybe selectively add some more contrast on them? I also think that the FG colors look a bit saturated, especially the oranges on the ground to the left and the lighter green of the bushes. I also think that the clouds in Morkels version look quite harsh (a bit too sharp and too much contrast), although I like what the upped contrast does for the FG.

Andrew McLachlan
08-25-2013, 08:08 PM
Hi Lyle, I like the way you have arranged the elements within the frame for this one...very nicely done. I do agree that the monuments look a little flat and while I also don't mind the sky I think Dan makes a good suggestion about what it may have looked like in 10 minutes or so. Did you wait and capture some additional versions? If so I'd love to see those too.

Lyle Gruby
09-09-2013, 05:50 PM
Thanks all for your feedback. This was actually shot at sunrise. I don't know that I could have gotten here much earlier because the road to get here is the roughest road I have ever been on (that is saying something because I grew up way out in the country). I was in my personal car, so I had to go slowly and carefully. I'll look into more contrast in the peaks. It's tough to balance whether to show detail in the mountains and controlling the garishness of the post processing.