Notchtop

This is the first of a series of photos taken on a recent trip to Colorado. We

hiked from the Bear Lake region of the Rocky Mountain National Park

towards Fern Lake starting at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet and heading

up from there. A light dusting of snow the night before added some

dimension, as well as treacherous hiking. Aloha.

Exceptional landscape, almost 3d like. Very sharp, beautiful light and colours. Is it HDR Dominick? Very well done!

Patrick

Really beautiful work with impressive lighting and colours, Dominick!

With best regards,

Ruud.

Patrick,  Yes, this is a 5 image HDR.  I used Lightroom 4.2 and exported to an external editor and re-imported the 32 bit file to Lightroom and further adjusted to suit my eye.   I meant to include  HDR on the tag, but should have finished my first cup of morning coffee before I posted ;-)

Hi Dom,

This is a beautiful scene! I'm conflicted about HDR. When it's noticeable, as here, I find it almost disturbing, although your rendition is certainly spectacular. I speak from no experience with it, but it must be hard to get it to do what it's supposed to without being so obvious.

All the best- G

G&V, I'm like a kid with a new toy and sometimes I think, "I don't care if it's a little artificial, LOOK at it".  It's more dense, more dimensional, almost 3D.   It's easy to use HDR as "artistic license".   But, I am working to tone down the effect so it's not noticeable.   I'll be posting more of these composites  over the weekend; let's see if I can tone it down a little.  Man, I am having so much FUN!  As always, thanks for the input.  Aloha.

The HDR is indeed surreal, but that doesn't necessarily mean its not attractive. There is a touch of artistic exuberance to the image that gives me the impression of a story book illustration that I find very pleasant.  HDR is a favourite subject of mine. It can produce a variety of looks, from the more "Grunge"  and "painterly" look to completely natural, but inevitabley the results are all subjective to invividual taste. I mainly use HDR when I want to overcome natural obstacles like high contrast and glaring light situations, or when I want to achieve a certain look. HDR is like a great big box of paints that you can create so many styles with it.  My advice is to keep experimenting and having fun!  But a word of caution, bracketing 5, 7 and 9 images at a time, fills up memory cards and hard drives rapidly!

One last little bit of advice for the the future, HDR skys are the usual giveaway, and often appear unnatural, if you should want a more natural look at some point in the future, then consider processing one of the bracketed RAW files normally and using it as a layer in PS revealing only the parts of the HDR with the erasor tool that you wish retain, before flatening the layers.

Best Regards

Alf

Alf summed it up so well Dominick! Beautiful image!

Alf, Gail, I will take your advice on the next one.  Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.  Meanwhile, I'm like a kid in a toy store!  It's fun again.

Magnificent!!

Cheers,
Drew

Hi Dominick,

  Breathtaking scene that could pass for a painting.  Fantastic work!!  Take care, Patsy

Very dramatic clouds. The snow adds contrast and interest, but slippery footing which I also hate in the fall, esp. off trail. Did you use NIK Viveza?

Jim, I used Photomatix.  

Unbelievably beautiful! No words needed!

Best regards Dominick!

PDE

A wonderful and beautiful shot. Congrats.

I did some post processing on it to reduce some of the blue related to the saturate command but adjusting the blue 'channel'. I am just producing something which I like but may not represent what you saw.

Looking forward to it!  If it improves things I may need step-by-step instructions ;-)

Very nice HDR landscape.  Nice light and nice clouds add the beauty to the whole  scene.  Excellent composition.  Best Regards,