Volcanic Clouds

[Don Ellis]

http://www.kleptography.com/dl/volcanic_clouds.jpg

Although Lake of the Ozarks isn't terribly volcanic.

[Sniper]

Wonderful colours, Don!

Lookes like live coal. Makes me wanna go out in the forest and make a nice little campfire.

Anders

[G2Jim]

Wow! Pretty dramatic.

[marie]

a wonderful sight



marie

[Leighow]

DON

Great.


HOWIE

PS: may I enquire as to whether you have tried Photoshop's "adjust all levels" (and back off a bit on the opacity).

While I would agree that is is hardly necessary here, it is a most magical action when applied to skies. Indeed, it has transformed a dozen geese-filled Autumn sunsets into sonnets!

[Don Ellis]

Dear Anders, Jim, Marie and Howie,

Thanks for all your messages. I can relate to the campfire comment, Anders.

This picture is slightly self-indulgent -- it's more for color than composition.

As for Auto-Levels, Howie, I try all the automatic settings on every picture in Photoshop before I even begin thinking about manually altering a photo. If I like the result, I leave it. If I don't, I hit Ctrl-Z and try the next one.

The nice thing about Photoshop 7 is that it has Auto-Contrast and Auto-Color in addition to Auto-Levels. I find that Auto-Contrast is often very, very good -- better than Auto-Levels. The two most important features in PS7 for me are the healing brush (don't often use it but it's great when I need it) and Auto-Contrast.

In the case of this photo, I hit Auto-Contrast and boosted the saturation a bit more than usual, although I always have Saturation set to Low in the camera.

Thanks again to everyone.

Don

[Griffin]

Don, are you trying to fake a photograph with a painting of your own? ;)

Great picture! I cannot find any better words other have already taken. :(

Anyway, I tends to stay away from "auto-" whatever in PS. I think a good profile and a littel adjustment in contrast usually does the job. :)

Keep us posted.

[Conk]

Looks like something nasty brewing. Wicked colours.