Ice Kingdom

I like this one also, especially the beautiful blue tones! Nice series.

Excellent cloud shot, love the colors.

This definitely captures the menacing hail core developing in this storm. Interesting mix of color and well composed here.

Great color Morris!

Morris,

Another great cloud image. For me though, not sure what it is and it's probably just me, but I'm still having trouble with the colors here - this one being a little purple. And it's still the case, I wasn't there...

May I ask - did you do any luminosity painting through TK's burn/dodge layer? Just curious and I'll expand if needed.

Lon

Thanks everyone.

Lon, the colors are close, I think, to what I was watching. The bright yellow/gold of the higher clouds, the ice blue of the towers beneath, and the yellow from the upper clouds mixing with the light on the upper anviled cloud to make it magenta/purple. Perhaps all a little richer for effect.

And, no I didn't use a luminosity painting on his burn/dodge layer. I adjusted the channels with curves layers, masked and adjusted opacities as I worked through them. Please do go into more detail for what you were asking for my benefit as well as others who might read this. Thanks for you input, and any further education of Tony's actions you care to share.

Morris,

I guess if I'm gonna drop a teaser like that I should have just come out with it. ;-) Let's see if I can sum it up without hijacking your thread.
- TK's Luminosity masks are selections of luminosity based off the main background layer (your lights, light lights, wide mids, shadow darks, etc.)
- B/D layer is a 50% gray mask on an empty layer. Make a selection (Bright Lights for eg.) On the B/D layer, paint black to darken and paint white to brighten, in a nutshell. Usually at a low opacity brush to make the changes more subtle.

Here's what happens in some situations:
- I've got an image/scan that is overly blue or magenta (happens a lot with my film shots)
- Create whatever Luminosity mask layers I think I might need.
- Then I make color corrections (gazillion different methods, and of course image dependent.)
- Start fine tuning and say I want to burn down the bright clouds or darken the gloomy clouds - I run the B/D action and create this layer for painting.
- Select Bright Lights for example and paint black on the B/D layer at 15-20% opacity to darken the bright values a little - (and using a paint brush is so very powerful here because you can just use like paint brush instead of some feathered selection)

So, here's what can happen. I've made color corrections in another adjustment layer. But now painting luminosity (actually revealing it) on the B/D layer I am now painting back in the original color of background layer via the luminosity selection. In other words, I'm now painting the Bright Lights selection using the original, un-corrected color in the bg layer. In my example I would be adding some blue back in to the Bright Light values. Now at very low opacities it's almost always not even noticeable - but somewhere along the line I figured that out and watch for it now.

So, long story short, I could have seen this happening to your image as the colors reminded me of my own experiences...

Hope that makes sense. Feel free to drop me a note, or anyone for that matter if you have any questions. Again, sorry for highjacking your thread...

Lon

I like the diagonal layout of the layering. However, the dark foreground clouds don't feel as nicely framing as in the previous image, which I liked. Still, images like this do make me wonder: What is the "true" color of a cloud? They're the ultimate chameleon it seems.

If there is one thing I might suggest here it is to use a selective color adjustment to change some of the magentas to blues or cyans. The magenta seems a bit strong, thought they do add some nice contrast.

Thanks for the detailed comment, Lon. I've experimented with the burn/dodge layer, but nothing as involved as what you described. Looks like it will be a powerful tool. I had noticed before that Tony gives you credit for helping develop some of the actions and tutorials, so of course, you would have a good understanding of employing these methods.

Tony, I did some selective color changing just as you stated before finishing this. I actually took out a lot of magenta, but may need to remove more. Thanks.

Pretty cool, Morris! Colors look ok to me, ive seen every color in the spectrum in storms at sunset. Comp feels a tad rhs strong to me, but the dark on the lhs does compensate somewhat,

Clouds are just amazing...this shows that.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Love clouds this is a great show. I might desaturate the yellows just a hair to see if they meld into the image/color spectrum a bit more.

I like the inky blues and purples Morris. The yellow is a nice contrast. Looks like a pretty powerful thunderhead.