Moab, UT C&C please

gregtallica

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Hey team,

Just got back from my first trip to Moab ever. It's my new favorite place, and I hate that I've lived in Utah for 25 years and have never been to Moab, yuck.


I'd like some C&C on these, as well as help with one problem I'm finding. For some reason I'm getting a weird white halo around all of the rocks. Some background: I usually edit in LR, but I'm trying to get better at PS. I used the different levels/curves/BW layers, and also tried my hand at some burning & dodging (lots of practice needs to be done here). Any idea why I'm getting the halos, or how to avoid it in the future?

Tips, tricks, thoughts?


#1, Delicate Arch, it's not easy to get a shot of it without tourists climbing all over it and making silly poses.
8936288869_d069854e49_c.jpg


#2
8936289745_b673a38f3e_c.jpg


#3
8936912468_8ab278c7fc_c.jpg
 
The halo could easily be caused by sharpening. Go easy on it ;) If you really like that crisp oversharpened look on the rock texture (which is fully legit, it IS a nice look) output two images: one sharpened heavily, and the other pretty much not at all.

Use the second one for the sky, and the first one for everything else. Stick 'em in two layers on photoshop, and use a layer mask to split the two right on that haloing edge there. If it is a sharpening halo, then it is by definition a very crisp edge, so painting in the layer mask should be pretty easy. You can be a little sloppy, too, since the two layers are damn near identical anyways.

I like the last two quite well. The first is pretty weak, unfortunately. It's a nice "thing" but the rest of the frame is blah.

The middle one has a wonderful crazy sky. I love that electrified look you've got there (possibly by oversharpening ;). The third one is also a nice study of forms and textures, and is quite lovely. The last two are complete pictures, the first one a record of an object.
 
I'm not a fan of the B&W on these. Moab is one of the most beautifully colorful places on earth.
 
First of all the pictures look great besides the halos. I like them all. I like the sky in #2 but I think it might be a little to much sky for my tastes, Maybe turn it into more of a panoramic aspect ratio? #3 looks nice, it is something I would not have thought of but it came out really nice, good job. Nice pictures.
Off topic but I am curious, did you go there for any reason besides Photography like rock crawling jeeps or other 4x4s?
 
I actually went down just for fun, no specific intent. I have an older blazer than I wanted to do some crawling with, but gas to get it there from SLC would have been a fortune. We did some river rafting and a hummer safari. The hummer thing was seroiusly a blast!


I'm half and half on the b/w with these, I felt like it kind of made them a little more dramatic, and made all three of them that way simply to go together. I'll try some color stuff and post it, the color may help out the boringness of #1.
 
How are you doing the B&W conversion? If you don't have Silver Efex Pro, then download the trial try running the photos through that.
 
BW was done through Photoshop, just the BW conversion layer and adjusting the color levels.
 
yeah not that you did a bad job on the B&W or anything but post up some color versions of them. B&W has its place, but part of the beauty of moab is the vibrant natural colors of the red/orange rock against the blue sky...otherwise they're just kinof 'neat shaped rocks' IMO...
 
I actually went down just for fun, no specific intent. I have an older blazer than I wanted to do some crawling with, but gas to get it there from SLC would have been a fortune. We did some river rafting and a hummer safari. The hummer thing was seroiusly a blast!


I'm half and half on the b/w with these, I felt like it kind of made them a little more dramatic, and made all three of them that way simply to go together. I'll try some color stuff and post it, the color may help out the boringness of #1.

I am glad you had a good time there. I have never been there before but heard it is an awesome place.
I like the black and white but I would also like to see the color versions.
 
Great shots. I'm too prefer colors on these. I thought Arches has awesome colors with blue dramatic sky. Thanks for sharing. I'm actually heading there in July. Any recommendation on the time of day to be at Delicate Arch and other locations? I will be camping there for two nights and would like to take some night shots as well.
 
If you're going in July - I've never been in July, this was my first time, but knowing the area - the best time to go will be 8:00 AM. Sunrise or sunset. It will be too damn hot to hike any other time of the day. If you were able to go at sunrise or sunset, you could probably get some seriously killer pictures.

You should also look into the sunset hummer safari tour, through the Moab Adventure Center. A little expensive, but they get you to some really cool spots and of course get you out over the rocks at sunset.



Will get some color versions up as soon as I can, I've been too damn busy.
 
IIRC, the way Delicate faces will be better at sunset during golden hour (front lit) vs sunrise (backlit) especially if you are hiking up to it.

BRING LOTS OF WATER and sunscreen/hat/clothing and food, there is no where to buy food/supplies except for in town which is a few miles outside the park entrance...
 
If you're going in July - I've never been in July, this was my first time, but knowing the area - the best time to go will be 8:00 AM. Sunrise or sunset. It will be too damn hot to hike any other time of the day. If you were able to go at sunrise or sunset, you could probably get some seriously killer pictures.

You should also look into the sunset hummer safari tour, through the Moab Adventure Center. A little expensive, but they get you to some really cool spots and of course get you out over the rocks at sunset.



Will get some color versions up as soon as I can, I've been too damn busy.

Thanks. I will check out the sunset tour. Unfortunately, I am going with a group of friends... I am so sure if those guys/gals wanna go. But thanks.
 
IIRC, the way Delicate faces will be better at sunset during golden hour (front lit) vs sunrise (backlit) especially if you are hiking up to it.

BRING LOTS OF WATER and sunscreen/hat/clothing and food, there is no where to buy food/supplies except for in town which is a few miles outside the park entrance...

Thank you for letting me know about Delicate Arch will be front lit at sunset hour. I will try to go around that time. I haven't research about the place. Is there any lake or waterfall there? I don't think there is...
 

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