Mt. Robson 1 (large view available)

No longer accepting ratings, but I would appreciate your feedback.

For fear of blowing out the sky/fog, I didn't make this brighter. Do

you think the trees should be brought out a bit more?

Best regards, Christal!

PDE

Hi Christal,

  Beautiful scene with wonderful colors, details & fog adds beauty to the scene.  Take care, Patsy

Great mountain scene.  Yes, I think the trees could be made a bit brighter.  My approach would be to process the image twice, once as you would like the clouds (which is what you have here), and again as you would like the trees (a bit brighter).  Make each of these a layer, and then merge the layers with the gradient tool.  There are other, quicker ways, but I like the naturalness of this approach.

Stephen, thank you SO much for this information.  Believe it or not, I don't know how to do layers.  I thought the only way you could combine images is by doing an HDR....bracketing and blending different exposures.  Your suggestion sounds easy enough.  I WILL learn how to do this, and I'll contact you when I do, if you don't mind.  I'm nearly to the point where I'll have time to devote to learning more about photography.  Our lives have been one chaotic moment after another for the past 2 years.  :-)  Thanks again, and Happy Holidays to you!

Well, you know I love this scene!  Yes, I agree the shadows could be improved, although in reality the cloudy conditions and the dark trees do have a natural darkness.  You know I'm an example person, so I've attached a slight adjustment using Capture NX2 with just a tad of adjustment to the "shadow protection" and "contrast" sliders.  Regardless, well done... Mike

I think Mike's approach is much easier than merging multiple layers, and I really like the result.  Another approach might have been the use of Nik software and their GND filter (flipped upside down).

Mike.....I have shows all day so I won't be home to look at this on my computer until late tonight.  But from what I can tell on my phone this is a huge improvement!  I don't know anything about Capture NX2.....is that what you use for all of your editing?  Does that program have unique editing capabilities that Elements 10 (which I use) doesn't have?  I would think I should be able to replicate your result with my program.  Thanks for your efforts!

Stephen.....I have heard of NIK but I didn't know it had a GND filter.  I own a singh ray gnd filter (2 &3) but I don't use it often enough.  They don't make a holder for it and if it's the least bit windy it's hard to hold.  As I recall the NIK program isn't too expensive.....isn't it supposed to be great for processing B&W?  I'll have to check it out.  Thanks!

Yeah, you can do the same thing with Elements it's just that I like how NX2 performs for minor changes.  However, I prefer NX2 for b/w conversion.  It just reacts more intuitively... I guess that means "user friendly" ;-)...  Mike

Well, I switched it out, and I do think I've improved it, but I really should go back to the original and begin again.  All I did was slightly alter my final version.  At least I learned from this.....thanks so much!

Wonderful landscape composition! I love the contrast between the forest and the fog.