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Dvir Barkay
03-06-2015, 10:02 PM
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Taken a couple years back in Death Valley during the morning hours. Never edited this shot, and finally on my new monitor decided it was kind of nice. I tried to keep the contrast smooth and not too harsh, so to some it might seem to lack a bit of contrast, but the more I edit the more I favor images that are slightly less contrasty. Enjoy.

Sony A100, Sony 16-50/2.8, F/8, ISO 100, Polarizer, 2012, Death Valley NP USA

Don Railton
03-07-2015, 04:16 AM
Hi Dvir... Yes I agree, quite nice... I think it has heaps of contrast, in fact I think you could lift the shadow just a little more if you wanted... I would have preferred that the reflection was complete and did not touch the LH side as I feel it draws the eye out of frame, maybe you have a little more to the left?? I'm guessing that's salt ..?

DON

Dvir Barkay
03-07-2015, 02:48 PM
Yes, not saying it doesn't have enough contrast, many people would lift the foreground and make it more contrasty, I feel that sometimes people do so unnaturally so I wanted to keep it natural. Yes I do wish I had a wider lens for this as it works as a vertical, but I didn't crop anything for this frame. Not a perfect shot, but a nice one like I said, should get back there again.

Diane Miller
03-07-2015, 10:42 PM
Very nice! I like the blues and tans together. Nice to see this in morning light -- I've only gone there in the evening, assuming the hillside wouldn't have good light in the morning. You got a decent amount of water, too.

I could go with less contrast, but by darkening highlights and lightening shadows, not with the contrast slider. But that's just my take. That would more nearly mimic our natural vision. Maybe a little more saturation, too?

Dvir Barkay
03-07-2015, 11:50 PM
Very nice! I like the blues and tans together. Nice to see this in morning light -- I've only gone there in the evening, assuming the hillside wouldn't have good light in the morning. You got a decent amount of water, too.

I could go with less contrast, but by darkening highlights and lightening shadows, not with the contrast slider. But that's just my take. That would more nearly mimic our natural vision. Maybe a little more saturation, too?

Thanks Diane, here is the original shot. As you see, the shadows were already rather dark and contrasty, very little light hitting the mountain side, so I think that raising the shadows anymore than I did would already make it look at bit unnatural.
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Dvir Barkay
03-07-2015, 11:51 PM
Very nice! I like the blues and tans together. Nice to see this in morning light -- I've only gone there in the evening, assuming the hillside wouldn't have good light in the morning. You got a decent amount of water, too.

I could go with less contrast, but by darkening highlights and lightening shadows, not with the contrast slider. But that's just my take. That would more nearly mimic our natural vision. Maybe a little more saturation, too?

Thanks Diane, here is the original shot. As you see, the shadows were already rather dark and contrasty, very little light hitting the mountain side, so I think that raising the shadows anymore than I did would already make it look at bit unnatural. What I could do is knock a tad off the highlights, although nothing is clipped the whites are a tad bright.

now that I look at it, I did crop a tad off the bottom.

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Diane Miller
03-08-2015, 10:15 AM
Desert light can be harsh, and nothing wrong with emphasizing that in an image. It's just personal taste, but I lean toward pulling out detail in shadows and highlights, as we see more than what generally shows up in the initial interpretation of an image by the raw converters. This is just a quick Detail Extractor, with some midtone contrast to keep it from going too flat. I probably went too far, just for the sake of illustration. I'd probably leave the reflection as is and mask back maybe half the effect on the hillside.

The shadow detail part can be tricky, because sensors have a lot more noise in the darker tones (to simplify it). Blending exposures gives the best quality.

Dvir Barkay
03-08-2015, 01:19 PM
Thanks Daine, I see what you did with the highlights, and so I went and made a lumonisty mask and took down the highlights. With the shadows I feel that raising them puts too much emphasis on the shadows, just a matter of taste like you say. So here is my newer rendition.
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