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Thread: Sunset Over The Rockies

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    Default Sunset Over The Rockies

    Sunset Over Rockies - Explored by David Stephens, on Flickr

    Canon 5D MkIII, EF 24-105mm f/4L, 84mm, Av Mode, ISO 800, +2/3EV, f/8.0, resulting in 1/100-sec., hand held, with Raw conversion in DxO Optics Pro

    On the Eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, at the beginning of The Great Plains, we get lots of spectacular sunrises and sunsets. The sky is aided by the mountains and their interaction with wind currents and pressure changes between the mountains and the plain. This is one of my favorites.

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    Wow, that's one amazing sky; the dream of any photographers. The yellow/orange saturation on the lower portion of the sky around the centerline is a little overdone resulting in banding in the clouds. Composition wise, I am hoping for more foreground. From the image, I can see some rolling green hills which I think would complement the sky really nicely. Is it possible to lift up the shadows some more in this picture?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Adhika Lie View Post
    Wow, that's one amazing sky; the dream of any photographers. The yellow/orange saturation on the lower portion of the sky around the centerline is a little overdone resulting in banding in the clouds. Composition wise, I am hoping for more foreground. From the image, I can see some rolling green hills which I think would complement the sky really nicely. Is it possible to lift up the shadows some more in this picture?
    Thanks Adhika.

    I'm having trouble seeing the banding. Is it above that brightest yellow spot?

    I'll try lifting the dark area, below the mountains. I'm not too hopeful, because that contains a bunch of office buildings and such that might be more distracting than additive. Maybe a crop that primarily shows only the mountains and not the nearer foreground, will be more satisfying. I'll see what I can do this evening.

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    Hi David,

    Here is what I mean with "banding". It's probably more like fringes than color bands. But it is a very discrete saturation changes from the inside to the outside. You can see it on the mountain edges and on the more yellow clouds above it. I notice it on the clouds above this particular crop section as well.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	saturation_banding.jpg 
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    Yeah, the building might be a little bit distracting, so probably not worth lifting up the shadows. Maybe next time when you are getting such beautiful sky again! :)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Adhika Lie View Post
    Hi David,

    Here is what I mean with "banding". It's probably more like fringes than color bands. But it is a very discrete saturation changes from the inside to the outside. You can see it on the mountain edges and on the more yellow clouds above it. I notice it on the clouds above this particular crop section as well.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	saturation_banding.jpg 
Views:	45 
Size:	92.4 KB 
ID:	160878

    Yeah, the building might be a little bit distracting, so probably not worth lifting up the shadows. Maybe next time when you are getting such beautiful sky again! :)
    Okay friend, I see what you're talking about. I'll look at it uncorrected to see what's "natural". I don't think that I made any "big" adjustments, but I've found after the fact that DxO's "Lens Softness" correction can be a little aggressive in its Default setting. I'll try to see tonight. I've sense dialed that back, but I may have processed this image before I discovered the issue.

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    Great scene! I don't know DxO but it's easy to get color edge artifacts (for want of a better term) like this in LR with too much saturation. There is a limit to haw far you can push contrast and saturation. I'd try starting from scratch with less aggressive settings, maybe just in the highlights.

    Do you have another raw converter for comparison?

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    I went back to the Raw file and brought it back up. I turned on the Chromatic Aberration and Purple Fringing correction, to no avail. Saturation was at 3, so I brought it to 0, to no avail. I could see the edge artifacts, even before correction, when viewed at 100%. My EV level adjustment needed to bring it up to this level was pretty large and that seems to have aggravated the artifacts.

    I have LR CC, so I'll try that tonight.

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    This may be mostly an issue with overexposure in that area. Try different camera profiles (in the 8th tab on the right in ACR -- Camera Calibration) to see if Neutral, Faithful or Standard is any better. Then try pulling down Exposure to see if that helps. If it does, try pulling down Highlights, and up with Shadows. Balance Exposure back up if needed. See if that gives a better starting point.

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    Hi David, that's a great sky and I am looking forward to a repost after you re-work the image file. I do not use Lightroom or DxO so no help there. I would evict the lights when you do a repost as well.

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