Wow! What a great batch of images have been shared in the last few weeks of Weekly Challenges. I just returned from Moab, and I have yet to process anything from my trip, so I’m digging deeper, back to Peek-A-Boo slot canyon, circa 2012.
Any–of course if I was going to use a flash in a slot canyon, I should have used a polarizer too, right?
This is a composite: slot canyon in one frame, moon in another
Marylynne, this is a pretty cool composite. Maybe you could darken the slot a bit, but I really like the colors and your design of the composition. I’ve never done the slots there, but I’ve shot in Devil’s Garden a number of times just up Hole in the Rock road toward Escalante. I’m guessing you’ve been there?
Marlynne, this is lovely, with it’s swooping, colorful rock formations against the bluebird sky and full moon. This would look very good without the moon, but it sure adds a fine touch of the artistic drama.
Beautiful forms in the walls of the canyon, Marylynne and the moon is perfectly framed. In this instance, I think the wisps of cloud at the bottom of the V are more of a distraction than an asset.
Thanks Bill, Mark, and Dennis.
Bill: Yes, I really liked the GSENM Devil’s Garden (so much more interesting than Goblin Valley). I wish camping were allowed there. I would love to explore that area more. I will play with darkening the slot. This was in my “all areas optimally exposed” hdr approach. That is no longer my style. This is why it’s good to share something that is “old”–to get new ideas for how to approach it. I actually shot it with a pop up flash on the 7D, I think.
Dennis: Yeah, that little bit of clouds has vexed me. It is too close to the rocks to clone/heal easily. At some point, I gave up, but I might take another stab at it.
ML
Marylynne. Most of the modern selection tools, including those built into photoshop will let you select the rocks (or sky) and put them on separate layers very easily. Yhen you can play with the clouds withou fear of messing up the rocks. I use Topaz Remask, mostly because I’m used to it. In that software, you just draw a more or less broad line along the boundary you want between layers, fill the pary you don’t want with red, and click the button. It shows the mask and you can fine tune it quite easily. When you click the done button, it saves your selection as a new layer.
I use it on 90+ % of my bird images to let me easily work on the background and bird separately. Topaz also has pretty good tutorials and I think Remask is part of their free Studio package.
