Yosemite Last Light

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Took two photos one over exposed and the other under.
Merged them in Photmatix with tone mapping. Did a noise reduction in Topaz Denoise.
40D
Sigma 10-20 @ 20
f 22
Tripod
400 ISO
AV Mode, Evaluative
Full Frame
Cloned out some branches in URC.
Can't remember the exposure comp as I have downloaded the files.
Comments/Suggestions Appreciated.

[Morkel Erasmus]

like the brooding sky overhead with the sun breaking through over the distant mountains. I would have preferred those two tall pines to be out of the way of the 'V'-channel the eye naturally wants to look down. great shot overall!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Jackie,
Nice job on the tone mapping....looks very natural. Agre with Morkel on the FG trees but that sky is quite dramatic. You may want to try a LCE on just the mountains.....to eliminate just a bit of the haze and give them a bit of tonal depth. Exloring a crop off the bottom(base of central pines) and left (eliminate tall tree on left) may help strengthen the comp some. Let's see what others chime in.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Thanks Morkel and Roman for your critiques. I like your suggestions for the crop Roman and tried a re-work. Made a selection of the middle range mountains and did an LCE using 20-80-0, but can't see too much difference. Anyways with the new crop I don't seem to mind the two pines as much as my eye seems to hook up to the diagonal line running from the ULC ro the LLC. Great suggestions.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jackie,
The atmospheric layers/haze are appropriate here and it was a slight change. You may want to go to 50/60/0......or play around with the sliders. doing it twice will also work but I wouldn't remove it totally....adds depth to the scene. Adding blacks to the neutrals in selective color may also work....so just play around with them till you like what you see. Glad you liked the crop also!

[Paul Marcellini]

I like the idea of adding some blacks, it seems just a touch flat and that may give it the needed pop.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Thanks for all the great suggestions. If it turns out well enough, I hope to do a large print. Paul I will play around with the blacks a bit, to see if it will give it a little punch.

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

Awesome image. Lovely and dramatic clouds as a cap on this image.
Really nice.

Szimi

[Lance Warley]

I hope this doesn't muddy the waters, Jackie, but I really like the first one. I like the tree on the left and the pano-like feel of the first one. That's the problem with a great shot, I guess - many positive opinions.

Either way, it's great.

With the processing you've done, especially the hdr, it really looks completely natural. That's no small achievement.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Thank you all for the comments, I will look and revisit. I so appreciate the input:)