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Ramesh Adkoli
08-03-2009, 04:42 AM
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2579/3783912377_68d889e8c2_o.jpg

Another view of the Cauvery River valley at Sangam. Thunderous clouds hang over the valley. Appreciate your critiques and comments.

EXIF: D700, 24-70mmL @24mm, 1/125s, f/18, manual, hand held, afternoon
PP: Curves, selective dodging, BW conversion using HSL, cropped the bottom

regards,
ramesh

Cindy Cone
08-03-2009, 08:19 AM
Great clouds, Ramesh. I like the composition and would only wish for a little more of the rocks in the lower left to anchor it more.

Roman Kurywczak
08-04-2009, 09:48 AM
Hi Ramesh,
Very dramatic and interesting clouds. The mountain does form a nice base and framing element but as I scrolled up on the image to remove some of the base, it does appear that you may need a bit of a CW rotation. The left FG rocks are a bit bothersome, but you may get rid of them after you try the rotation and crop. I think you could also pull out some more depth and tones of the B&W conversion to further increase the drama especially on the darker LH side where the clouds almost merge with the mountains. All in all a very dramtic cloudscape with a nice curving mountain that needs just a little fine tuning.

Ramesh Adkoli
08-04-2009, 10:17 PM
Thanks Cindy and Roman for your thoughts on this image. Roman, i cropped a big part of the bottom to remove distracting rocks from the FG. I left this much to retain a view of the river. When you said "...pull out some more depth and tones of B&W conversion...", did you mean to lighten them up? Sorry, i didn't get that. Can you clarify?

regards,
ramesh

Roman Kurywczak
08-05-2009, 08:35 AM
Hi Ramesh,
There are many ways to get lighter and darker tones including the dodge and burn tool and even fading them. I took the quick way but it will give you an idea. I selected the middle ground hills and adjusted the middle slider on an adjustment layer. I darkened the FG rocks a bit the same way. I merged the layers and applied Shadow/highlights with settings of 10/14/30 on the shadows and 2/50/30 on the highlights.......this toned down some of the whites in the sky adding more depth without lightening the darker ominous cloud too much. Lastly I did a LCE using unsharp mask (check Robert's tutorial at the top of the landscape forum) or 20/20/0. I did add a bit of black back using selective color of 5%. It brought out a bit more details.....especially in the sky. Playing around with the setttings to your own tastes will allow some extra fine tuning. Let me know what you think.

Ramesh Adkoli
08-06-2009, 05:15 AM
Thanks a lot, Roman for demonstrating your comments. This goes a long way in my understanding the PP intricacies. Thanks again for your time.

regards,
ramesh