The Tooth w/repost

What, no shot of you on top of the pinnacle? Nice result for midday . . . I could see adding a bit more punch in the sky to bring out the contrast between the clouds and the blues. I like the way the ground in front of you seems to wind in an arc toward the top of the pinnacle.

Dean,

Had the same thought as Phil... did you summit the peak?

I think this showcases the peak and geology at the top well, especially for the fairly bright light. I think you did well. I would also agree with Phil that you could play around with the sky and the contrast in general. A number of ways you could take this, but this looks pretty darn natural.

Hope you made it back ok.

Lon

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.I've tried to add a little more to the sky.

Hi Dean,

I like the original sky better at the top, but not at the bottom. Overall, while maybe not a "fine art" image because of the light, you did a fantastic job of handling the harshness of mid-day light and using it to present a picture to be proud of. Really nice work

Michael

Dean,

Looks like you used a hue/saturation layer for the sky? I like what the saturation/contrast did to the mountain top and ground here, but I think the top of the sky went a bit too far. I think that's what Michael is referring to also.

I don't know what you're using to process the images, but I was just thinking the sky needed some contrast. Actually the sky isn't bad, over exposed or anything like that - it looks like the sky would look at the time of day you captured this. It does almost look like there's lots of moisture in the air too.

Anyway, with your permission I'd be happy to take a crack at it. Thanks for taking the time to re-work and re-post the image.

Lon

Lon, I definitly see what you and Michael are talking about. Please feel free to "take a crack" at it. Thanks,Dean

Dean,

Ok, here's a quick try. Now this is just my personal interpretation and it doesn't mean this is right or even better... :-) Also, working on and re-saving the jpg reduces the quality, but I hope you get the idea.

The main thing for me was to reduce the overall brightness a bit and also selectively increase contrast. In general:

- midtones levels adj layer bringing the mids to around .93 and bringing the low and high input levels closer together to increase the contrast a small bit.
- Tony Kuyper's saturation masks to play around with mostly the blues
- Tony Kuyper's burn/dodge layer masks in conjunction with selectively reducing the darker tones in the sky and also selectively darkening the mid tones both in the sky and the rocky foreground.
Painting with a low opacity of about 15% really gives great control and subtle changes.

Anyway, just a quick work of this. Hope this helps. Drop me a note if you have any questions.

Lon

edit: now that I see this posted, the blues could probably still use some color adjustments, but it was mostly the contrast I was after. Hope this looks ok.

Nice improvement on your repost. I like the improved contrast in the sky. My only thought might be some additional darkening of the foreground.

Wonderful scene and comp. That midday haze is hard on photos as you note. I find high radius/low amount sharpening to be helpful in cutting the haze a bit.

Hi Lon.I really like how you were able to even out the blue in the sky. The technical aspects of post processing still mostly elude my understanding. I appreciate your help with this and any thing else in the future.

Dean