Somewhere Out There+RPST

Hi Wayne,

I can't get enough fading foothills.  I think half a sunset is plenty when its got the nice diagonals and this looks nice.  I especially like the handful of taller pines sticking up on the nearer ridgelines to break them up.

I'd consider a crop taking 10% off the left up to the copyright symbol to drop the brightest section.  That bright section draws my eyes and has that feel like if I keep going I'm going to look into the sun so I don't want to look there...if that makes any sense. :)

Wayne, I like the color, depth and feel of this image. Many times I see really nice and pretty, even beautiful images that are just that, but they don't have a feeling that keeps you in the image. This one creates that feeling. Thanks for your very kind comments on my image from the Tetons. It was interesting, other photographers were there just waiting for the mountains to appear and it did not seem like they were seeing or experience the other more subtle beauty around them. 

This definitely works for me, Wayne. I love the little bit of light on the foreground ridge and the subtle colors. Very peaceful.

This is definitely enough for me anyway. The layering hills are very "day dream-invoking", they have a very nice atmosphere, especially with the patches of forest capturing some of the light. The rays in the sky are alos great, as is the warm to cold transition in the sky. My only nit would be that I am seeing a bit of haloing around the hills.

This has to be seen large to be fully appreciated.  A very pretty scene.  I might boost contrast just a bit overall, and this is really sweet.

Half a sunset works really well for me, Wayne.  I think you got the best half.  Love the crepuscular rays and the receding ridge lines.  Sweet light on the fore ridges really take this up a notch.  Nice work.

This looks great to me, Wayne.  There's an excellent sense of distance in the mountains and the crepuscular rays plus golden colors on the left add fine yet subtle touchs of warmth and drama.  This half of the sunset looks great to me, I can easily imagine standing there listening to the birds singing their end of day songs.

Hi Wayne,

The sun rays shining down fro the sky above are wonderful, and I enjoy the layers in the hills. I very muich feel this image is more than enough, and the beauty of the night was well captured and displayed to us.

Beautiful work!!

Thanks everyone. 

ROEL:  "I am seeing a bit of haloing around the hills."   Thanks.  I see the halo now too -- on the left side where the orange sky hits the dark hilltop.  Fortunately, it's just a resizing (shrinking) artifact, and there is no trace of that in the full-size file.  A somewhat related issue is that some people seem to think the atmospheric halos in hazy layers are due to post-processing.  To some extent, that may be true when mid-tone contrast or clarity is increased in processing, but this just enhances the natural atmospheric halo;  it does not create it.  To illustrate that, I am posting this unedited crop of one of the original Raw images used in my HDR, along with a copy of it that shows how increasing the Clarity slider in ACR (the only edit) affects the atmospheric haze. (By the way, I did not use clarity to produce this image.  I just sent the unedited images to the HDR software, but I think a process similar to Clarity is used to produce HDR images.)

HERE'S A REPOST, trying out NPN's new feature for large-size files in the comments section!  I assume you just need to click on this image to see the larger version.  (Could not upload both sizes, so this small one is automatically generated.  OOPS -- NPN software does not allow files over 500 KB, even though the instructions in comment section say 1MB is allowed.  I'll use lower quality.) Here goes...  Yep, that worked.  We can upload large files in comments, BUT no bigger than 500 KB.   CLICK ON THIS IMAGE TO SEE THE LARGER VERSION.  Open a new window in your browser to display the original one so you can compare them by alternately selecting browser windows.

ROEL:  See comment above about the halo on the left.  I tried to fix it with the repost.

BILL:  Thanks for the suggestion about more overall contrast.  I do think the contrast in the individual parts went a bit flat when I processed this.  The sky was WAY brighter than the foreground.  I tried to address that in this repost.  Not sure if it helps or not.

It's a fascinating comparison, Wayne.  The repost shows a nice bump in drama which should attract more views, however, the original brings to mind the memory of standing on a mountain top in VT watching a gentle sunset with subtle colors and hearing a Blackburnian warbler singing it's sweet song as the distant ridges faded slowly into the darkness.  (The result was nearly getting locked into the state park as they closed the gate at the bottom of the mountain at dusk. )

The repost is a significant improvement Wayne! HDR software indeed applies something similar to clarity to improve local contrast since HDR takes the overall contrast down. But you are absolutely right in that part of these haloes are present in the scene from the beginning, that's also partly due to our mind playing games with us with transitions... Thanks for the repo and the RAW-comparisons!

The light's fantastic Wayne, it's the kind of image that draws you in, makes ya stay awhile.

My eye ends up center, looking past the layers of disappearing/distant ridge lines to infinity..

Peaceful scene, it evokes an introspective mood IMHO.

Beautiful as posted

Half a sunset is still pretty nice 

Wayne, This is a great looking scene, so yes, this half worked out wonderfully.  The layers are very nice and I love the light beams. The repost works especially well for me. Nice work Wayne!

Nick Bristol

Wayne, that's a beautiful scene. I prefer the repost, the mountains in the background seem to be more evident as well as the rays of light from the sky. I like it. Very nice work.