Teton dawn - Backlit project

[gary ellwein]

Nikon D200, Nikkor 200-400mm, hand held, matrix, f/5.0, 1/800, iso 400. Removed several overlapping and distant birds, moved one and levels.

[Geoff Warnock]

Lovely colours Gary, if only the middle bird had played along and got his wings in sync. Personally I think it would be nice as a pano crop with all of the ground at the bottom cropped off, but I would want to keep this version too.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Nice pattern of the birds with no overlapping, love the color in the sky too. I might to increase saturation in the sky a bit and completely darken the mountain range and see what happen too.

[Julie Kenward]

Gary, this is a really lovely image. I did a few small tweaks to it just to see what might make it even stronger.

I selected the birds only and pushed the blacks in levels so they were a strong, hard black. This makes them pop against that beautiful orange sky. I then did a slight curves adjustment to the BG so the top of the sky would go a little lighter and the bottom would stay a deep orange. I also added a round of sharpening to crisp up those edges. Silhouettes look best when they pop off the BG!

Composition-wise, I took a little bit off the right side so there was less negative space and this puts them in a position of flying into the frame instead of being balanced between the two sides. This is subjective and purely personal preference.

I do wish they had been a little lower in the sky - I would have loved to have seen a little more of the tetons in the BG since they have such a nice tonal range to them.

[gary ellwein]

Gary, this is a really lovely image. I did a few small tweaks to it just to see what might make it even stronger.

I selected the birds only and pushed the blacks in levels so they were a strong, hard black. This makes them pop against that beautiful orange sky. I then did a slight curves adjustment to the BG so the top of the sky would go a little lighter and the bottom would stay a deep orange. I also added a round of sharpening to crisp up those edges. Silhouettes look best when they pop off the BG!

Composition-wise, I took a little bit off the right side so there was less negative space and this puts them in a position of flying into the frame instead of being balanced between the two sides. This is subjective and purely personal preference.

I do wish they had been a little lower in the sky - I would have loved to have seen a little more of the tetons in the BG since they have such a nice tonal range to them.


Thank you Jules, the corrections looks great. Will try to duplicate.

[gary ellwein]

Thank you Jules, the corrections looks great. Will try to duplicate.

TO my eye, looks better. The sky could be a bit lighter, thanks.

Gary