Up a Rocky Hill

[expatphotog]

I've been working on this off and on for 3 weeks. My first go was pretty much as it was out of raw, but it just looked bland. The next go was "over dramatized", I think. I'm just going for natural with some "pop", and I'm not sure I'm there yet. The really dramatic sky was happening off to the right, but throwing some nice light across the hill. This is my back to natural version with a slight curves adjustment.

Shooting data:
5D, EF 24-70 f2.8L, ISO 400, AV mode f8 @ 1/200th. Hand held and no filters. Time of day: 4:05 gmt (my camera time is still on US east coast after 8 months in the UK, lol).

I have a few from that shoot that I really like. This one I keep trying to like. I'm just not sure if it works.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/scubacowboy/Photography/UpHillSized.jpg

Shot on Sharptor, Bodmin Moor Cornwall UK.
Thanks for looking,
Bruce

[Swift1]

Wow, really great photo!

Did a few touch ups, hope you don't mind. Made the sky on the right side bluer, sharpened a tiny bit, and removed that tree in the background that was annoying me =P.
I also made the sky stand out more...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/kninja0/Lasers/XT%20Camera/aliencam/beauty.jpg

[expatphotog]

I dig it :D Now you gotta tell me how you did the sky!! I've been struggling with sharpening lately. Felt I was oversharpening everything for awhile and now I've gone the other direction :lol:
Cheers,
Bruce

[Swift1]

Well, I lowered contrast and I think brightness was lowered too, a bit. I used a brightness/contrast adjustment layer, and then I made the bottom half of the photo (below the sky...) filled in with black on the layer mask of the adjustment layer, and the top was left with a nice sky image.

Sharpening, I just went to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen. Then I went to Edit > Fade Sharpen and lowered the opacity to somewhere below 20%.

Making the right side of the sky bluer was a bit tricky, but what I did was select a part of the sky on the left side or in the middle, and I copy and pasted it onto a new layer. Then I stretched it out with the transform tool, and I moved it over the gray part. I then made the blending mode of the layer set to 'Color'. Then I just moved the sky around to where it needed a bit more blue.

EDIT:
Aha! I found what it needed more of. Saturation.
Sorry that it looks a bit low quality, but that's not my fault ;).

[expatphotog]

Thanks for that Swift! Image processing has been my bugaboo since going digital. I'm a lot better than I used to be, but still a long way from where I need to be :lol:
Cheers,
Bruce

[BoeingBonkers]

I think photos like this, taken in cornwall, malvern hills etc look great as B&W...
Done in channel mixer.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y67/Boeing777/UpHillSized.jpg

[Swift1]

Okay...Here's the latest photo..Sorry the tree looks bad :(

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/kninja0/Lasers/XT%20Camera/aliencam/land3copy.jpg

[italypa99]

they both look very nice good shot

[expatphotog]

That looks familiar Boeing. One of the first things I did was convert it. I love b&w so I convert everything :lol:

Lookin' good Swift!

Thanks a lot Italypa99!

[expatphotog]

OK here's my re-do after looking at Swift's edits. Didn't want quite so much saturation and the tree in the background doesn't bother me :D Did it all in BibblePro (except sharpening and noise reduction) by tweaking exposure and fill light, with just a hair of sat thrown in.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/scubacowboy/Photography/UpHill2sized.jpg

Oh btw, this is a different shot with a bit better composition on the boulder. Otherwise, it's identical. Whatcha think?
Cheers,
Bruce