Theme: Into Thin Air

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

SEP - luminosity blend toning, duplicate multiply adjusting opacity, 2nd SEP- luminosity blend pass, Topaz Adjust - Started with a 4 shot photomerge in PS.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Dennis Bishop]

Incredible. The colors, contrast, and tonal range are wonderful. It's very dynamic, too. And then there's the mystery. You are going to reveal what this is, right?

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Michael, well, it looks like clouds or vapor trail but maybe that's too obvious. From the thumbnail I thought it was frost on a window but full screen I know that's not what it is. It's lovely whatever it is

[Mitch Carucci]

Beautiful clouds. Great texture. Strong upward movement!

[Diane Miller]

Wonderful, with amazing processing, I'd bet.

What would you think about removing the bright areas in 3 of the corners -- are they intentionally part of the composition?

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Dennis, Cheryl, Mitch, Diane,

Thanks much for your comments. They are much appreciated. I was out walking (looking for whales along the coast) and saw this interesting cloud pattern. The vertical crop is perhaps what is unusual about a cloud photo.

The processing wasn't so remarkable, but it got me to thinking about what processing I'm doing. My typical workflow on all photos is noise reduction, luminosity toning, color adjustment (with intervening touch-up as needed). For this image the color adjustment was duplicate-multiply blend with opacity adjustment to bring out deeper blues. The luminosity toning (Nik Silver Efex Pro for conversion to B&W but other conversion tools would also work, then blend back original color (hues) with luminosity blend with original) is probably the trick which has the most effect here and actually for most of the images I do these days. I've been working on variations of this method for years and I think this is "it" (for me, anyway). Akin to HDR but with only one capture... maybe dynamic range focusing might be a better descriptor. Happy to discuss this more if there is interest.

Diane, good point about the corners.

Cheers,

-Michael-