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View Full Version : The dunes..#3



Don Railton
02-25-2015, 08:03 AM
Hi Guys.. what do you think?? Taken about 1/2 hour after sunset in the afterglow. I have another similar that's a stitch that has the RH peak a little further away from the RH border that I think is better compositionally, but its later and the glow is not so prominent, its more just blue...

Single image full width cropped to 3:1 format

1D4 & 24 to 70 F2.8 I sitting on 5 series gitzo.
1/4 sec at F14, ISO 160

Converted and partially processed in ACR, the finished off in CS6. Mainly setting black and white points. Removed debris from dunes (dead leaf matter mainly), I have applied Neat image NR to the sky and sharpened the dunes using NIK package. I think I need to carry a white card to set WB in situations like this...

DON

Diane Miller
02-26-2015, 12:01 AM
I love the colors here, and the scene is very pleasing, but I'd love to see the one that has more on the right, for comparison. From my experience, it isn't easy to pull out this much tonal detail well after sunset. Good work!

Don Railton
02-26-2015, 05:40 AM
Here you go Diane...! A little later and the blue is a lot more developed...

Diane Miller
02-26-2015, 09:34 AM
Quite a change in the sky. I do prefer the composition here and I'd bet you can cheat a little and add that magic pink gradient back to this sky -- and a little darker that in the first pane.

Don Lacy
02-27-2015, 07:27 AM
Really nice Don I love the sky in the first image but prefer the comp of the second

Don Railton
02-27-2015, 08:34 AM
Thanks Don and Diane... yep, I think the cheating will begin..

Diane Miller
02-28-2015, 06:29 PM
Think of it as "interpretation". After all, it's a really long way, with a lot of flexibility, from raw data to an image. A lot of parameters have to be supplied.

Andrew McLachlan
02-28-2015, 08:47 PM
Very nice Don...I do look forward to seeing the repost after you have completed the cheating phase :S3: For the repost I think the blue is a bit too much and I would use Selective Color and reduce the blacks on both the blue and cyan channels.

Morkel Erasmus
03-01-2015, 01:09 PM
Hi Don
I much prefer the composition of the 2nd frame, and agree that the blues are too much. Good advice for knocking it back from Andrew...

Don Railton
03-01-2015, 09:29 PM
Very nice Don...I do look forward to seeing the repost after you have completed the cheating phase :S3: For the repost I think the blue is a bit too much and I would use Selective Color and reduce the blacks on both the blue and cyan channels.

Hi Andrew,

This is the non cheating version where I have taken the existing sky and pulled out the Blues and Cyan in selective colour as you suggested and then tweeked the brightness/contrast a little... I do think this have taken a lot of the 'heaviness' in the sky and balanced up the image a little overall... My preference is for the pink sky in the OP however so I now plan to cheat, if I can, and create that sky in the RP foreground... I think that will look best.

thanks for the help...

DON

Don Railton
03-01-2015, 11:17 PM
and here is the cheater version where I took the sky from the OP and added it to the extra FG in the second post... Problem I had is that the sand spray is very difficult to mask and in this variant the spray is almost gone.. unfortunate, but that's the limit for me in PS at the moment. It would be quicker for me to go and reshoot this than to play more in PS trying to get a nice tapering plume... and it would be more fun also, so.. I'm done. thanks for all the help, as always, most grateful...

DON

Diane Miller
03-01-2015, 11:24 PM
But you've lost contrast in the dunes. The sky isn't a simple fix but had to give it a try. Did a Sel Color and pulled back the blacks in the Blue channel. Then got desperate and did a new empty layer, did a gradient from the top and filled it (Mode: Color) with magenta. Overdid it, just to show. Not like the original but just to show what can be done. Also did a Structure enhancement to the dunes (Viveza). I plead guilty to being a Structure freak.

Thanks for letting me play in your sandbox! I'll have to add those dunes to the view of the Milky Way if I ever get Down Under again.

Don Railton
03-02-2015, 12:13 AM
Hi Diane, Huh.. missed that.. totally focusing on the sky and I must have picked up a different variant. You are free to play anytime with my images... If you do ever get down this way let me know, these dunes and the pinnacles are very close (<1/2 hour) from each other... The pinnacles are where I took the astro images..

DON