Valley of Fire and trying to enhance color

padrepaul77 · Nov 7, 2009

I'm still getting used to Elements, and really am clueless on layers, so I was toying with this shot at Valley of Fire near Vegas. I was trying to bring out the red in the sand, which I'm guessing is why they call it Valley of Fire...any thoughts? I just saved it as a separate file, and used the magic wand to fix the sky a bit.

The unaltered image is below the changed...

ANDS! · Nov 8, 2009

Mind posting the original big size file. I'm assuming you have Photoshop; Photoshops LAB color-space has many wonderful tools for bringing out the color in photographs without compromising contrast.

Plato · Nov 8, 2009

Father,

First, layers... They're not all that difficult. They are simply images on top of images. IF the top-most image has 100% opacity AND it covers the entire frame, you will not see the lower images. If, however, the top-most image is less than 100% opacity, a lighter version of the next lower image will show through. Also, iof the top-most image does not cover the entire frame, the lower images will be visible on the portions of the frame that the image does not cover. If you want more detail, send me a private message.

Now, the Valley of Fire... It brings back memories. Our honeymoon (almost forty years ago) was in Vegas and we also toured the Valley of Fire. In any event, go here and download the trial version of Adjust. Make copies of your good shots and play around, starting with the presets. They make really neat software that integrates well with PSE.