Aerial View of the Carson Valley #3

Any comments or ratings are appreciated!! Merry Christmas!! :-)

Okay ... here's my take on this shot. The original was hazy and the colors flat. I used "levels" and the color balance settings to fix all of the colors in the mountain and the valley. But, try as I might, I simply could NOT get the sky to look realistic ... it was VERY frustrating. That little reddish streak along the line where the mountain tops in the distance meet the sky is such a strange color ... and the jpeg artifacts here on PN make it look worse. It's the first thing that my eye goes to. Are the rest of you bothered by the same thing? What would you do? Help!!!

First, Merry Christmas. Hope your second semester goes better....

The reddish streak is probably haze. Not a lot to do on this ... might try burning in the sky a little.

I sort of see the artifacts here but they're not that distracting to me. I'm just a hack with Photoshop but if this were my photograph I would probably consider options such as the following:

One could enhance the line of smog so that it is more apparent. Nitrogen oxides and ozone CAN be beautiful (just don't breath it in).

Or one could composite in a new and beautiful sky.

Or I would most likely try to feather and blend the smog line upward into the blue. Create a selection around the smog with a fairly wide feather value. Apply some Gaussian blur. Then grow the selection area, refeather it, more blur. Repeat the cycle about 4 or 5 times. The goal is to get a smooth transition from the horizion upwards.

BTW thanks for the Christmas Card link...have a very Merry Christmas and safe New Year. Regards.

I was first struck by the great sense of space and didn't notice any jpeg artifacts until you drew attention to them. I would agree with Walter's general approach using Gaussian blur on the sky. Happy Christmas!

I think Walt is right. It's smog and more on a commentary on how hard it is to find true wilderness anymore.

 

I like it, Lou Ann, and the afternoon sun on the rocks is what gets my attention. I didn't even notice the colors of the sky.

hi lou ann, try Neat Image to smooth out artifacts -- you can get it for free over the internet and it works really well. happy holidays, ben

Nice perspective and composition. Walter's remarks are enlightening to me. Good work here on a diffcult lighting situation.

Just curious if you were to play God, then this might be an alternative . . .

Interesting crop, Wils! With PS, we play God all the time, don't we!? :-)

Every thing said and offered already, I still think that it is well done thinking of the photographic conditions. Pnina