Clouds and White Sand

Taken a few days ago in White Sands NM. The clouds made for softer lighting and less dramatic shadows on the dunes, so I instead went for integrating both clouds and sand. C&Cs welcome.

ps - Yeah, I know, "What white sand?"...

http://gallery.photographyreview.com..._HDR4_1200.jpg

The cloudscape has a much better visual impact than the titled part Greg

On my monitor, the sand isn't white. The clouds on right seem well exposed but everything else is under exposed.
Maybe this is one of those good times for HDR

Greg,
nice curves in the sand
I'll pull the shadows quite a bit to make it brighter, increase contrast a bit, maybe some saturation
the blow highlights in the clouds can not be recovered

Great composition !!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by armando_m

Greg,
nice curves in the sand
I'll pull the shadows quite a bit to make it brighter, increase contrast a bit, maybe some saturation
the blow highlights in the clouds can not be recovered

Great composition !!

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I agree with all of the above. Very well composed. I wonder how much you tried to lighten up the sand already... it is definately worth trying to make it brighter.

Boy, a split neutral density would have been great here. It's just underexposed enough in the foreground to lose my interest, especially since my attention is drawn towards that blown out central cloud. But wow, what a great place to work with.

You can use the patch tool, clone tool and healing brush on the blown out cloud. Or crop it out and Pano it.

Thks for commenting. This is actually an HDR. When processing, I didn't aim for a normal shot, instead wanting a moody one. I guess I have so many photos of White Sands that I want something different now (or just better!).

Pete, tilt? The image looks level. Maybe you mean the way the dunes roll, which they do :) Slept the night at the bottom of one actually.

Frog, on partly cloudy days with the sun behind a cloud I find that the foreground often turns blue, like the sky. It is a tad dark: maybe I'll run it through the mill again and see what else I come up with.

Armando - I can try that. But you wouldn't believe how much I upped the contrast already, as the soft light really dulled things that day.

Ridgetop, and I have a split ND filter too, didn't use it :( just the polarizer. As it stands now, just an artsy shot... Maybe I can make it more discernable on my second pp job.

Greg, make try that. Pano..? Not sure it would be very interesting. Maybe though.

Thks too Ctn.

gb

For whatever its worth, I would (almost) not change a thing. To me, the colors are somewhat mystical and cool, and the clouds are great. I don't mind the underexposed feeling. The only thing I would do is make sue the little cloud on the very right of the frame is either cropped away or made much less bright - as I don't think very bright areas on the edges of the image look good.