Zion National Park

[RbnDave]

This shot was taken at sunset in Zion National Park. I used a tripod and timer so there wouldn't be any camera shake. The picture looked great on the LCD, but when I got it home I found it to be a little underexposed. I played with it in Photoshop for about a half hour and this is the best I could come up with.


http://www.pbase.com/image/22044606/large.jpg


I found this picture looks great when I view it in actual pixel size. But, when I view it at a size that fits the screen the photo looks over sharpened and the colors over saturated. The shop where I bought my 10D is giving me one free poster print. Do you think this would look good poster sized?

Thanks

Dave

[stopbath]

This shot is very nice, the layers work nicely, but it looks a trifle muddy in the shadows.

The texture in the grass is great, the sunlit portions are nice, but the shadowed walls just lack punch.

Since the shot was under exposed, did you use levels, and curves to bring it up or did you just raise the brightness?

[henkbos]

Post the original so we can have a go at it!

[RbnDave]

This is the original jpeg conversion from raw. Take your best shot.

http://www.pbase.com/image/22078294/large.jpg


Good luck. Let me know what you do in PS so I can copy your results.

Thanks!

Dave

[henkbos]

Few minutes to spare in the office. Edited on my laptop, so may be not the best results, but you'll get the picture (lol).

1. duplicated layer; selected the middle of the pic with the magic wand, brightened that section
2. duplicated highlighted rocks; reduced contrast
3. merged layers, palyed aroudn with curves and levels a little
4. duplicated layer; used gradient tool to adjust the sky as I wanted the brightest point in the right bottom corner of the mountains, added a little noise to the sky
5. saved as tiff and converted to HTML with Breezebrowser
Obviously the result will be better if you can work on the original on a proper screen.

http://www.henkbos.com/web_pics/untitled_std.jpg

[RbnDave]

Henkbos,

Thanks for the input. I put your advice to work and this is what I came up with.

http://www.pbase.com/image/22107578/large.jpg


I wish I had some more experience with my 10D and SLRs in general before I took this photo. I used a polarizing filter and I think the filter took away a lot of the colors. When I dialed the polarizer, the mountains in the background glowed in comparison to the forground. The effect looked great through viewfinder, however I think the end result was washed out color and contrast in the forground. To bad Utah is 2000 miles away, I'd like to retake this photo on a day with some clouds and a wide angle lense.

Dave