This is a 2 shot blend to achieve the water speed and the sky section.
Any and all.
Any and all.
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Chris,
Although I’ve never been, this is a classic take on the Virgin river and the canyon hike. I really like the perspective and I think you did a great job with the exposure blend. The comp works well too with the eye naturally being drawn in to the scene.
The only suggestion I have might be to bump up the shadow detail as well as the yellow luminance in the trees. Yeah, I realize it’s a dark canyon and there’s no direct light… but I think the right cliff side and cottonwood are a little dark (again, expected, but I think some detail could still be had.)
I went ahead with a quick edit. I used a TK color selection channel (yellow) and raised with a Levels layer, then also reached back in to the TK archives and used the TK Darks Triple play. I don’t know if he still as some resemblance of that in his latest panel, but basically a way to raise the darker tones. Not sure if this works towards your vision, but thought I would put it out there.
Great image with few minor tweaks.
Thanks @Lon_Overacker for the great feedback. I was worried about those yellows especially on the right and not sticking out. So I played with that and bringing up the darks a bit. This what I came up with. Thanks again.
Nice shot! My suggestion would be to darken the highlites in the water at the bottom center/right so that the eye isn’t drawn there.
@Greg_Stokesbury, I think your re-work looks nice, but Lon’s tweak is a bit more open on that right side. The water looks great to me.
One other suggestion is to tweak the brightness of the sunlit wall in the right side background. It draws my too quickly through the scene.
Sure is a beautiful canyon, and you’ve done a nice job here.
-P
I like the vortex like composition of this image. It has a lot of visual energy and tension. There is a lack of detail in the bright rocks at the very top which I would try to recover.
Real fine take on the Virgin and I like the rework. It nails it for me.
Thanks @Lon_Overacker, @Preston_Birdwell, @Harley_Goldman, @Igor_Doncov, @Tony_Siciliano for the input. I always had the detail available because of the blend. But since the light was hitting it directly, I thought I might leave it a touch over done. But after everyone pointed that out and how it is a distraction, I thought I should do something about that. So here is another revision. And as always thanks for the input.
That’s the ticket, Greg. The walls in the background now balance very nicely with the rest of the image. This is a keeper.
–P
This is beautiful, Greg. Very dynamic composition with the flowing water pulling you into the image. The final repost looks great.
