Oak Creek Canyon

Took my girlfriend on a drive to see if we could catch any fall colors here in Arizona and drove through Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. Some of the trees were turning but not a ton. Did get some neat photos though... We hit the canyon just after the sun had moved past the western side so the light was not terrific (again!) but these were the best I could crank out. All taken with my 50D and kit lens.

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WoW! Love 'em .. what do you use for PP?

I did some basic adjustments in lightroom first, then merged in photomatix, then made some levels adjustments in cs5. I'm pretty happy with how these came out, excepting the trees. Just not good light.

You had imaging edit on -so I just took your tree photo into LR, adjusted the exposure (you had tons of room on the right side of the histogram), added some clarity and increased the red saturation.

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<---- PP newb. Not really sure how histogram works. I play with the sliders til I get it as close as I can to how I like it.

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Man, I gotta learn how to do all that!

Well hanging out here is as good a place as I can think to start.

These shots are very much improved over the series you posted a couple weeks ago. I tried to comment on that one several times actually, but I couldn't find anything nice to say about them and didn't want to come off like an ass.

This set on the otherhand is a huge improvement! Well composed shots and you did a good job reigning in the tone mapping to tolerable levels. Still a bit stronger than I prefer, but many will like them the way you presented and it's certainly not so strong that it turns people off.

The only negative thing I see in any of them is the blownout areas in the creek. Also, I would suggest for shots like that if you shoot at a darker time of day you will eliminate the hot spots and slow down your shutter which will get some nice water movement. I like your last post of the red tree best. Nice job!

Im partial to number four myself but thanks! Seems like some days my intuition is on more than others, but I'm happy to be improving.

I didn't see your previous shots. But I see focus issues. It may be my bias but I don't think shallow DOF is a friend of HDR. They tend to look soft anyway OOF parts look like they're disolving to me. I found I kept trying to get your backgrounds in focus with my eyes.