The Desert

[GB1]

Taken out in I believe eastern California, this is a five shot HDR. Comments? I'm personally OK with the shot in general, but I think the sand may look artificial.

Gb

[emiles]

I don't think it does, looks fine to me.

Only thing I would have to say is the spot above and to right of the left most hill looks a smidgen blown out, but that might just be my screen.

[DLB1973]

Nice job on the HDR. So many of them I see are just sooo manipulated, this has a nice subtle feel.
db

[guzziknight]

I like this a lot! How about trying a B&W conversion? It may fix the issue you have with the sand, although I don't have any issues with it. I think I will look good in B&W though.

[llewpics]

I would add a little bit more contrast into the sand ...it may make it pop a little and serve as a lead in to the mountains in a stronger way then it does now.

[Greg McCary]

Well done GB, artifical but in a good way. I like it.

[zerodog]

Looks like a spot we go camp a lot. Nice job on the HDR. I would like to see a little more saturation in the grass. That is the only thing that comes to mind with this image for me.

[GB1]

Thks, desert lovers ..

emiles - I think in this situation it's your settings. It looks OK on both my work and home computers (though they could both be dim).

db - Thks, I do go for a look where you can't tell its HDR. I wonder if I didn't mention it would anyone know?

guzziknight - Just tried, do you like it? To me it's a tad bland in the sandy foreground, but I think it's better after I cropped off a bit.

llewpics - I tried upping the contrast and color in the sand, but it didn't have the desired effect. I tried.

Greg - Thanks, artificialness a fine line that you don't know if you crossed. But if you do, it's good to make it aesthetic anyway. I wish I had a better process in my post processing - I tend to just adjust this and that till I think it's ok.

zerodog - I just masked off the sky and upped the saturation on everything else. It really didn't do much .. there's just hardly any color in that foreground. Arggg. Maybe during a flower bloom.

[armando_m]

I realy like both versions the color and the B&W

nice subtle hdr

I do not have anything to nitpick

[emiles]

must be, because other than that spot it looks great.

personally i like the color better

[jetrim]

The "artificial" actually looks like frost to me, and I like it as is...

[guzziknight]

I like both versions. The crop in the B&W looks good.

[LeeIs]

I think the B&W is great! The other one is good also, but the B&W gets rid of the artificialness of the first.

[GB1]

Thanks everyone. I did go back and look at the original images. I don't think it was frost from the looks of them (also don't remember it being that cold, and it was late in the day); sometimes the desert sand out there can have a tamped, worn out look for whatever reason. Could be all the other organic stuff mixed in with it. The ideal-looking sand is usually the stuff you find in dunes - Death Valley's and Yuma's come to mind, but there's many others I'm sure. The west coast's beach sand, at least southern California's, also doesn't look as good as dune sand, or even east coast beaches. Part of that's due to all the seaweed that washes up on shore here (really nasty stuff, unfortunately).

I also like the crop but not more than the original - I think they both create separate feeling images, and both are OK.

Thanks again for your comments!

GB