"The Way"

This looks to be a rather benign capture exposure wise, but was in fact most difficult. I was drawn to the way the emerging light was creating a glow in the backlit trees and flowers. Problem was, the tonal range was quite extreme, requiring three exposures to gather all the data in the highlights and shadows. While a grad filter of about 1.2 might do the trick, it would leave a very obvious shadow across the tree tops (actually, a 1.2 holding the highlights would still probably hit the left side wall; a stack of grads would probably be needed). In Photoshop, I stacked the middle exposure over the sky exposure. I made a careful selection of the leaves and branches, making sure not to select any of the sky area. I feathered the selection with 2 pixels and then pasted it onto a new layer above all of the layers. Then I masked the middle layer and painted in the sky from the bottom sky exposure. Meanwhile, the top layer from the tree selection blocked the mask, retaining the lighter value that was necessary to prevent a shadow transition. Finally, the brightest exposure for the foreground was blended in. The last step was necessary to provide maximum detail in the darkest areas. I probably go to too much trouble to take an ordinary picture of trees and flowers, but in my eyes, this is like paradise! Make sure to click the image for the Larger preview.

Thanks for any impressions. I appreciate the feedback. Click for a Larger preview!

The image is lovely, but your extended description of the exposure and post-exposure techniques employed are just as appreciated. It's cool to be able to learn from this. Thanks!

There's a lot to learn from this image the way you described it, Mark. Extreme tonal range is one difficult thing to overcome in landscapes like this one and you've perfectly achieved this the way this photo was managed. Aesthetically and technically 100% here. Congratulations! Regards - LESTER

Beautiful shot Mark and thanks for the tutorial. Much appreciated.

An "ordinary" image in your words but with a great emotional appeal. All your trouble was well worth it and your processing is impeccable. Very well done Mark!

I think you have a very good personal style for landscape photography, as I am starting to recognize it's your photo, without knowing who took it (through rate images section). Anyway, very good sharpness here, great colours and composition is very effective. Loving this scene alot! I have nothing to criticise.

These areas are difficult to photograph, I know, so I can appreciate the cohesive composition you managed to get. I particularly love the row of sage-like plants. Too bad the tree on the left is cut off a little, and the colors in the sky seem slightly odd - a little greenish? I tried a quick edit in PS on a screen shot, and color balancing with settings of -4/-24/+1 seemed to help with the cast. It makes the rest of the scene less green, but helped bring out the subtle differences I think. Anyways, great scene of the hills, and excellent work with the tough blend.

John, Lester, Jim, Leo, Ramunas and Floris! This photo needs a little Love. Floris, the sage understory was one of the compelling elements in the scene for me. I am not bothered so much by the tree getting a little chop, but I do get concerned by weird color shifts from post pro. I usually eye-drop areas of the sky to check colors, and compare on two monitors. I don't see anything excessive, but the overall look may be shifted toward cyan-aqua. I can play with that. I think the yellow mixing with blue might be the problem, maybe reduce the yellows in saturation. It's always a little something. Thanks for the suggestion!

This is a lovely image and well worth the effort that you went to to process it.

It is a truly peacful scene.

Very well done indeed!

 

Rob

 

Mark a beautiful result considering the dynamic range and the difficulty of using grad filters in this case. Why don't you download Photomatix (free trial with water marks) and give it a try. I am having success with it and you can't even tell that I used the HDR process. I had less success with the HDR in photoshop. My latest 3 exposure HDR http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=9061163&size=lg