Half Dome At Sunset

I know Half Dome at Yosemite has been photographed to death but was just

in awe watching the sunset there last night. I am reposting this image using

the correct white balance. Comments appreciated

Wow, it's wonderful, really nice work!! GREAT SHOT!

Nice shot! Were we standing next to each other?

I've just been reworking a series of photos of the same scene I shot last June. I spent a good hour and a half there photographing Half Dome and Tenaya Canyon, along with other portions of the panorama. You have done a nice job with the lighting on Half Dome and, more critically with the popular scene, the light in the sky.

 

I notice - perhaps a bit too much - the work to lighten the shaded area of Tenaya Canyon at the lower left. I notice it most of all just below the shadow line between the sunlit and shaded areas.

 

I struggled over this with some of my photos of this scene as well - I wanted to get some detail out of that area of the shot, but found it hard to do so without creating an somewhat artificial effect. Eventually, I decided that the Canyon actually is fairly dark and let it remain so.

 

In case you don't know about them, here are a few things to try:

 

- A combination of bringing up the level in the canyon just a _tiny_ bit and then dodging some of the highlights can make it seem lighter there... without losing the really dark areas that are naturally part of this scene.

 

- If you shoot RAW, you can do two conversions from RAW, one optimized to control highights and one to bring up a bit of detail in the shadows. Combine the two using masks.

 

- Feather the blend line between the light and shaded areas with a larger area - perhaps 150 pixels or more.

 

Take care,

 

Dan

Dan thanks for the advice. I am definitely going to take the original file and try some of your suggestions. Since i took this one about a year ago, i have learned more PS uses and can try these things out. This is certainly a shot where there are so many ways to process.

Lovely image with warms colors.