Just south of Kathmandu, Nepal

Rhubarb · Apr 28, 2008

These were taken close by to Chobar Gorge.

When I made the first picture, the light was very low so to get the photo to resemble something much closer to what the human eye was capable of viewing, I made a copy of the RAW and processed one for the sky and mountains and the second for the foreground, and then blended them together in Photoshop, using the gradient tool.

The second one has had some minor tweaks made in ACR. I'm considering a little burn and dodge for the sky before I make prints.

Your thoughts and comments, as always, very much appreciated.

1.

2.

caspertodd · Apr 28, 2008

Wow! Those are both amazing!

Antarctican · Apr 28, 2008

What a spectacular view in that first shot! The backlit clouds are very dramatic. Love seeing far off places, so thanks for posting.

That tree in the second shot, it's 'huge' isn't it? That is, it has a large circumference, right? Do you know what kind of tree it is?

Arch · Apr 28, 2008

Just a little tip for you - in the first image if you use a layer mask and brush (set to a low opacity, around 18%) instead of the gradient tool you can more accurately apply the graduation between the sky and forground layers. This means you can follow the shape of the treeline more, giving you a more subtle result. As it is at the moment the 'line' of graduation is a little harsh on the treeline.

But great images, i really like the second :thumbup:

tranceplant · Apr 28, 2008

WOW AND WOW.....

this is amazing! great texture and the sky is beautiful. Can you share with me(or us) what you did to those pictures?

Rhubarb · Apr 28, 2008

caspertodd said:
Wow! Those are both amazing!

Thanks for the comment caspertodd!

Antarctican said:
What a spectacular view in that first shot! The backlit clouds are very dramatic. Love seeing far off places, so thanks for posting.

That tree in the second shot, it's 'huge' isn't it? That is, it has a large circumference, right? Do you know what kind of tree it is?

Yes, that is a huge tree! It was quite a contrast against the somewhat bare landscape. I'm not sure what type of tree it is (I will try and find out), but when I came across it, it was a moment of 'Wow! How amazing is this tree?!'

Arch said:
Just a little tip for you - in the first image if you use a layer mask and brush (set to a low opacity, around 18%) instead of the gradient tool you can more accurately apply the graduation between the sky and forground layers. This means you can follow the shape of the treeline more, giving you a more subtle result. As it is at the moment the 'line' of graduation is a little harsh on the treeline.

But great images, i really like the second

Arch thanks for the comments and tip. I actually attempted your suggestion first, and spent quite a bit of time trying to get it to look right, but I just couldn't get it to a point that I was happy with. The gradient is applied in the layer mask and I also tried shaping it to suit the tree line better - but still couldn't get it to look like what I was aiming for. I will have another go at it with your suggestion of 18% opacity and see how that goes. If the results are any good I will post it.

tranceplant said:
WOW AND WOW.....

this is amazing! great texture and the sky is beautiful. Can you share with me(or us) what you did to those pictures?

Thanks tranceplant, I pretty much covered what I did for the first one in my first post. The second I made adjustments to the RAW in ACR and then saved as a JPG.
I made some minor exposure adjustments, adjusted the contrast using the tone curve, and then bumped the saturation for the oranges, greens and yellows. I dropped the luminance of the blues just a touch which increased the contrast between sky and clouds.

Finally I added quite a lot of vignetting, I liked what it added to the shot and it also emphasised the sun rays in the top right hand corner.

Let me know if you would like to know anything more, I don't mind posting the values I used but unless you are familiar with or use ACR they probably wouldn't mean a lot.

I think what really help make that shot was the light at that point in time was simply, golden.