Tungnath Temple, India

Another shot which has been perplexing me for a while, post-processing wise.

Tungnath Temple, high in the Indian Himalaya. No HDR trickery here.

Needs a curves, saturation or tonal adjustment?

EDITED: Lifted shadows, slight saturation reduction (the sky is already super-saturated anyway, as the shot was taken at high altitude)

EDITED: Fixed sloppy edge masking

Too much saturation and blacks in my opinion.

Edited: Lifted shadows, slight saturation reduction.

The sky is super-saturated due to the high altitude of the location.

Is it possible to post the original so we can see where you started from? The contrast is pretty high to start with.

jetcode wrote in post #13403763
Is it possible to post the original so we can see where you started from? The contrast is pretty high to start with.

Unfortunately, I don't have the original or the RAW file on the hard drive I'm carrying with me at the moment... it was two blended exposures - one for the sky and one for the foreground - but high contrast nonetheless, as you would expect in this situation - bright sun, show and deep shadows.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever taken a photo that *isn't* high contrast - just my style, I guess!

Opinions?

I think the low mids and shadows could be raised 1/4-1/2 stop but full well knowing the limitation of resolution in those tone sets my guess is there isn't much room for improvement. I wish you had a larger frame for lens correction. The edge where the two images meet is a bit on the burnt side. Considering the contrast I think it is a reasonable print. A little saturated for my tastes but not without viewing interest in the subject.

jetcode wrote in post #13403833
I think the low mids and shadows could be raised 1/4-1/2 stop but full well knowing the limitation of resolution in those tone sets my guess is there isn't much room for improvement. I wish you had a larger frame for lens correction. The edge where the two images meet is a bit on the burnt side. Considering the contrast I think it is a reasonable print. A little saturated for my tastes but not without viewing interest in the subject.

Easily fixed - I'm currently going along the edge at high magnification to sort out the 'burnt edge' problem (the current copy is basically a rough draft).

I could raise the shadows a little more, but think it would reduce the contrast to an unrealistic 'tone-mapped' look, like you get from bad HDR conversions - maybe it's a difference in the monitors we're using.

Not sure that perspective correction would be a good idea in this case - I think it's part of the effect of shooting with such a wide lens at a low angle and, in this case, seems to add to the dramatic nature of the shot rather than detracting from it.

Fixed the 'burnt edge' issue.

The remaining edges which look dark actually are dark, being a layer of soil and dark vegetation visible above the grey and ochre rocks.

I like this shot. Good color and composition. Only thing I would do is lighten the blues.

whoty wrote in post #13406449
I like this shot. Good color and composition. Only thing I would do is lighten the blues.

I was thinking about that, but thought that bringing it back to 'normal' (i.e. sea-level) sky colour would make the shot lose its impact. What struck me the most when I was up there taking the shot was how dark and 'space-like' the sky was... what do you think?

Hi. The sky looks like you used a polarizer. Its a bit too dark at the edges and perhaps lift a bit of detail from the shadows. Great shot, though. Looks like an amazing place.

No polariser used - at such a wide angle, it would have produced very uneven polarisation. The sky looks dramatically different when you have half the amount of atmosphere (by mass, not by thickness) above you.

I'm experimenting with lifting the shadows to produce a final image - trying to increase visible shadow details without losing the high-contrast impact of the photo.

Updated with lifted and improved shadow details.