Gorges de Galamus

My second visit to the spectacular Gorges de Galamus and I found

much better light this time (and warmer!). Not a road for the faint-

hearted! - view larger for best 3D effect.

Very nice effect indeed

Very   good image  and a fantastic  landscape.

Cheers;  Bela

Quite the 3D effect, did you accomplish this just with DOF control or did you do some post shooting work to achieve this very interesting effect. Well done. 

An interesting experiment, but it doesn't work (for me) because the blurring of the distance looks so unnatural. I otherwise like the photo, and you are certainly right that it is a spectacular location. I like the wide aspect.

You might continue to work with this one by eliminating the blur and just holding back your sharpening on the distant slope with a mask. You could also de-emphasize the far distance by slightly de-saturating, but maybe you've already done that—it doesn't seem to need it. Another possibility:  brighten the rocks & wall a bit in the distance where the road curves out of sight to draw the eye there. 

A more subtle blur (0.8-1.2 px?) on the background would be worth trying too.

Craig, I both blurred and slightly darkened the BG in an attempt to recreate the landscape in 3D. In the original, the depth was not captured effectively mainly because the BG blended with the FG. However, Jim raises some valid points and I now have to agree that the degree of blurring is overdone.  I took your advice and applied a 1.2 pixel Gaussian blur, it is barely noiticable but is still effective in enhancing the third dimension that is an essential part of this landscape. Thanks Jim, your critique was spot on - this is what PN is all about! Cheers, RickDB