Sometimes Banding isn't such a bad thing

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Folks,

Greetings. I started this back in the toning theme. It's from a rather bland hazy image of the mountains around Joshua Tree National Park. Most of the detail lines in the sky and far mountains originate as banding as the processing decreased color resolution... simplify picked up the trend and contrast amplified the banding into texture.



This is one of those 40 or 50 layer creations pushing contrast here, simplifying there, pulling saturation and going with the moving target until it appeals. Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Diane Miller]

How to make a silk purse from an artifact we're usually fighting. Very nice! I love this kind of atmospheric perspective of receding hills with haze trapped in the lower reaches. I've learned to go looking for this sort of thing on a "spare the air" day -- but you probably have to live in CA to appreciate what that is. We sometimes get domes of high pressure that trap pollution in the lower elevations, and people are begged to limit air-polluting activities such as driving and using wood stoves. And of course it almost always happens in the coldest winter weather -- well, weather WE think is cold, anyway.

My eye is drawn to the straight line of the horizontal ridge top nearest the bottom of the image. I keep wanting to visually blend it into the bluer hills just behind it.

[dankearl]

A nice abstract, I might lighten the last range a tad to give a bit more DOF to it.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Michael, this reminds me of the Great Smoky Mountains. Lovely colors and the banding adds a lot of interest.

[Christopher Miller]

Love the layers of blue, Michael! A very pleasing abstract.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

The banding adds to a nice painterly feel. Sort of Group of Sevenish (famous in Canada anyways,) Love the blues/purple and violets. Quite striking.