Valli di Tures e Aurina

[Christof Ruch]

Ok, this is actually an "old" image of mine I keep coming back to because I really like it, and I really screwed up while taking it. It is a perfect example of doing an ad-hoc unprepared pano forgetting to think:

While hiking up those beautiful southern tyrol mountains in Fall 2005 I noticed the clouds partly opening the view of the opposite range. Taking 3 quick pictures in (ouch) program mode of course hand-held (because I didn't carry a tripod up there), and exposing for the highlights by doing a -1 EV compensation, I ended up with three particularly ugly underexposed JPEGs. And luckily with three RAWs. :)

Coming back to them at times I like to try my PP skills to create something worthwhile. Today, I did import the three RAWs into CS3 correcting exposure saving the highlights, did a Photomerge, cropped, Auto-levelled, enhanced saturation of the yellows, and did a selective sharpening saving for web.

Technical info:
D70 with 18-70mm at 18
3 images with apertures 13, 11, and 10 (ouch) at corresponding shutter speeds around 1/500s at ISO 200.

Enjoy,
Christof

[Robert Amoruso]

Hi Christof,

I think you did really well with the outcome here with regard to the exposure. You lost some detail in the dark trees but overall nicely down. What I would have liked to see would be a bit more on the bottom so that the foreground slope did not abruptly end at the trees at the right.

[David Kennedy]

Christof,
I'm impressed with the stitching given that the individual images were captured hand-held. I agree with Robert that the foreground is a touch dark--it could easily be lightened with a curves layer masked to that portion of the image. Attached is an example of the lightening I envision, as well as a touch of cropping to eliminate the "bunching up" of the trees in the lower left, and add some space between the tree on the hilltop and the left-most edge.

[Christof Ruch]

Hi Robert, thanks for the reply and nice words! Too bad I do not have more canvas at the bottom in the pano, I agree the slope seems to "leave the image" there. I do think the trees in the lower right corner balance that somewhat, though.

@David: Many thanks for your crop and lightening suggestion. I redid and repost here, its an improvement for sure!
I am unsure about the precision of the mask I used, I desperately tried not to create a halo along that line, but somehow, I still think I can see one...

Cheers,
Christof

[David Kennedy]

Christof,
Very nice work on the edited version. You may be right that there's a slight halo, but zooming back in at 100% and masking out the affect on the very border of the trees and the clouds/mountain face will fix any problems that might be there. I agree that it would be better to have even more foreground, but given the conditions under which you created this image, especially without a tripod, I think you should be very pleased. Cheers!

[Robert Amoruso]

Hi Robert, thanks for the reply and nice words! Too bad I do not have more canvas at the bottom in the pano, I agree the slope seems to "leave the image" there. I do think the trees in the lower right corner balance that somewhat, though.

@David: Many thanks for your crop and lightening suggestion. I redid and repost here, its an improvement for sure!
I am unsure about the precision of the mask I used, I desperately tried not to create a halo along that line, but somehow, I still think I can see one...

Cheers,
Christof

You are right, the trees do stop your eye. I like the repost - looking real good.