Santa Elana Canyon; Big Bend NP

[Michael Lloyd]

EOS 1DsMKIII manual
24mm - 70mm f2.8L @ 35mm
RRS Ground tripod. Arca Swiss ballhead (really handy for getting down low)

ISO 400
1/25s @ f20 (no, it's not a typo. 1/25s)

The Rio Grande river flows out of Santa Elana Canyon on the west side of Big Bend National Park. It's possible that this was shot from the Mexican side of the border however I was never able to find the yellow line that the map showed so it's hard to know for sure :cool:

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Michael,
Very nice compositional lines leading me to the slot of the canyon! You have to crop rocks somewhere....and I think you chose well.....I really like the way you have the water and shoreline at the base of the image and how it leads you in......cropiing rocks on right out.....maybe......but my recommendation is to see if you could tone down the 3 larger rocks on the RH shoreline edge of frame ....just to eliminate any potential imapact they have on the scene.......very nicely presenented and composed! My bet is you were in Mexico.....because the boundary is usually the center of the river......since you were on the RH shoreline.....did you go through customs on the way back?:eek:......must say you are running around in some interesting country!

[Michael Lloyd]

I think I was in Mexico for just a little while Roman. My camera started going tecleo whenever I took a shot. :)

Agree on the crop. Since this is the full frame image I have room to crop top to bottom and not impact the canyon at all.

Big Bend is very diverse to say the least. Boquillas (Boe-kee-yas) Canyon (east side of the park) is very dramatic but I wasn't comfortable with taking my camera to the canyon entrance when I was there. Maybe another time when I can be a little more prepared.

[Jay Gould]

Lovely image - completely works for me and shows the grandeur of the canyon. TFS!

[denise ippolito]

Beautiful view and sounds like an awesome place. I like the canyon walls and the way the shoreline leads you in. Very nicely done.

[Ed Cordes]

Well done. I like the way the river leads my eye through the image. The FG LRC rocks give a good anchor. The blue sky with just the right amount of clouds. Only suggestion would be to darken the rocks on the left shore just as you enter the canyon.

[Ramesh Adkoli]

Nice composition and angle of view, Michael. Looks like a great place to be. I felt the image is over exposed as shown by the detail-less rocks on the riverbed, RHS canyon wall and LHS bottom wall. It is a front lit subject with a high sun and such possibilities are common place. I opened the image in ACR and pulled back the exposure by 2/3 stop and did couple of very minor tweaks. Here is a repost. Hope you don't mind me playing with your image. Let me know your views on this:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2499/3908516558_25f73f9856_o.jpg

regards,
ramesh

[Arthur Morris]

Super strong COMP as noted by Roman. Like the sky but the relatively harsh light is not pleasing on the rocks.... Ramesh's repost is a bit overdone. Perhaps something in between might work well in dealing with the light.

[Michael Lloyd]

Thanks all. In taking a closer look it appears that I got a little over zealous with the Shadow and Highlight tool. The left wall is a very good indicator of this. Exposure was pretty spot on with the original... I just twiddled a little too much :)

[Michael Lloyd]

Better? Suggestions?

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Michael,
I think Ramesh was on the right track......but do believe we could work it even more! I will offer my re-post and a possible suggestion for you to try in a rework. While I do like the re-crop.....call it stubborn or whatever else you want......I liked most of the original comp!.......so I went back to your original for the re-post......I did a reverse s-curve on the entire image! (try this with the original to tame the contrast......then do the corrections!!!).....it will probably work best on the original and the rest of the steps will become mostly unnnecessary....but will give you a few other ideas........I used the highlights adjustment only....to tame the rocks in the middle and the entire MG slope and FG rocks. I also used a bit of a warming filter at 25% opacity(check if you can convert the raw WB to cloudy) to warm it up a bit on everything but the sky.......also selective color to the neutrals......added a bit of pop and then added black in selective color......to darkenn the shadow area again to a more pleasing area......finally.....a bit of contrast to entire image. Yes it was a lot......but I do believe if you try the WB change and reverse s-curve first to original.......rest of corrections should be easier! I did a crop.....but less than you in second post....I did have to patch tool a stray rock twice......let me know your thoughts.

[Michael Lloyd]

Ahh... I see. I definitely prefer the original (it was uncropped btw) crop over my last iteration. The little side stream inlet (Rio Grande comes from the canyon) adds to the image (to me it does anyway). It's a little too pink (see the clouds) but I see where you were going.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Michael. Figured I would put my two cents in. I like your 2nd post where you added to the left. I wanted to take the shoreline out of the middle so I cropped from the right and added to the left. I did it quickly so it's not as clean as I would like. Another version to look at...

[Robert Amoruso]

Michael,

Just in case you get back to this. Repost with reverse s-curve and darkened in levels.

[Arthur Morris]

Tones are perfect in Robert's repost but a red cast was introduced.

[Michael Lloyd]

I've been studying some of John Paul Caponigro's DVD's (currently reviewing Drawing with Light, 21st Century Dodging and Burning) in preparation for a workshop in October, so I thought I would take a different tact with this image. I completely forgot to deal with the foreground rocks though :(

At first I thought the Roman's warming was over done... but the reality was that my images were too cool. Once I saw them side by side I could tell that the WB was definitely too cool. As an aside- I always tend to fall on the cool side. I wonder if Gretag Macbeth could hook me up with an eyeball calibrator.

The techniques use were all done with curves layers, blend mode changes, masks, and gaussian blur application. I didn't scratch the surface of possibilities and really didn't do the techniques justice but I can see a definite benefit to mastering them.

This is my 20 minute fly through the techniques version. I might be a tad over saturated on the rocks. That's easy enough to change though...

I can definitely see that I could do some more work to separate some of the foreground elements from the middle to background elements

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Michael,
I actually like cool tones also but as I am aware of that.....I try to check other WB settings just to make sure. I actually like the warmer tones here.....adds to the appeal. I also agree with trying to seperate the rocks as much as possible.....but as always.....this will take some finesse and time! PS skills are now very important.....I don't believe that they are the thing we need to rely on most.....still want the best image in camera.....but there deffinitely is a place where PS skills applied to tweaks......can make a big diiference. We are all sudents in that regard....heck, I still have PS2!

[Michael Lloyd]

PS skills are important... and mine are lacking :D

I agree- get it right in the camera and use CS to finesse the final result.

In the image above I'm not happy with the warmth of the foreground rocks (river bed). They are too warm imho... But it was a fun exercise and I can see the benefit of the relatively simple to implement techniques. It's just a matter of lassoing an area and using luminosity, hue, and saturation mode on a curves layer (one for each mode) to bring the area forward or push it back and then feathering the selection with a Gaussian blur so there are no edges or posterization. There are some other simple techniques to define an edge better that are subtle but do make a difference.

Anyway... fun stuff. Thanks for everyone's help and guidance.