Natural Bridge (View Larger)

Ray Banfield and I arrived in Bryce around noon and set up our camp

and then headed out to scout areas for our sunset shoot. As we toured

the different turnouts, our desire to get "shooting" overtook the

extreme harsh light we faced in that early afternoon. This is a

combination 3 exposures that were processed in Photomatix 4.1. The HDR

cut away some of the harsh light by filling in the shadows and

highlights and cutting the contrast. I took the finished HDR and

converted it in Lightroom to B&W. I like to use Lightroom for

conversions, as after maneuvering the B&W color sliders, I switch to

to the Basic and adjust the color and tint sliders to further refine

the look of my B&W tones. I often can obtain some separation of tonal

values that eluded me in the B&W conversion mixers. The finishing

touches including toning in Ektalure Cream & Selenium. I find the

addition of the cool purple of the Selenium mixes very well with the

yellowish Ektalure Cream to give something like I saw at Bryce Canyon.

The fact that you have a pretty dark background really helps to define the arch.  Nice texture on the rocks, helped by a combination of light and shadows.