Half Dome at Dusk, Yosemite, CA

[erich6]

More on Yosemite. A bit soft for my taste but I thought the colors turned out well. Any comments on how to make this one better are appreciated.

Erich

[Dzerzhinski46]

Dear Erich,

You have a good composition here, a good perspective. However, your exposure could use some work. The snow seems a tad overexposed, like you were trying to get detail in the shadow regions. I think that there is too much contrast between the shadows and the highlights. Maybe some judiciuos doging here and there. Make the snow less bright, and bring out a little more detail in the shadows. Next time meter the snow, then the trees, and average the reading if you can. It might work better. Good shot though.

Drew

[erich6]

Dear Erich,

You have a good composition here, a good perspective. However, your exposure could use some work. The snow seems a tad overexposed, like you were trying to get detail in the shadow regions. I think that there is too much contrast between the shadows and the highlights. Maybe some judiciuos doging here and there. Make the snow less bright, and bring out a little more detail in the shadows. Next time meter the snow, then the trees, and average the reading if you can. It might work better. Good shot though.

Drew

Thanks for the candid feedback. I think I butchered the photograph in post-processing. Here's another attempt taking some of your inputs under consideration. I brought up the shadow details a tad which reduced the overall image contrast appearance. I also brought down some of the highlights. Finally, I cropped in to get rid of some of the distracting dark foreground. This is the best I think I can do if I want to keep the same format. Otherwise I think this is best in panoramic format. Do you agree?

Erich

[Dzerzhinski46]

Thanks for the candid feedback. I think I butchered the photograph in post-processing. Here's another attempt taking some of your inputs under consideration. I brought up the shadow details a tad which reduced the overall image contrast appearance. I also brought down some of the highlights. Finally, I cropped in to get rid of some of the distracting dark foreground. This is the best I think I can do if I want to keep the same format. Otherwise I think this is best in panoramic format. Do you agree?

Erich

The shadows look a little artificial now. I am not sure about the highlights. I would have just used curves. Not much more. I am not sure if the original photo is where the trouble originates or not. Try not to make your photos too artificial looking. Be subtle when you alter the shadows and such. It works well as a panorama.

For the highlights, don't bring them down too much. Their brilliance adds a lot to the lovely look. The golden glow works good with Half Dome too. With the shadows, it might be better if they were darker, so as to contrast and bring out the highlights. It is just a matter of what you are looking for, not me . Do what you think needs to be done. The first one is closer to what I think would be the optimum in this case. But this is your photo, so you work on it till you feel that it is good.

Drew

[erich6]

Drew,

Thanks for the honest feedback. It's right on.

Erich

[jar_e]

Erich,

Interesting shot. Dze. covered most of it, but it has a lot of potential and just mess around with the levels!

Nice shot,

Jared

[gahspidy]

This is not a bad image. Crop a slight bit off the bottom, a bit off the left, and bring up just a little bottom in curves and you can also increase a bit of blue level at the top to get the sky a little bluer and you have a pleasing photo. Be very subtle in all the editing so as not to lose too much info in the original file. Also, being that the image came out soft while it still looks pleasing, you could experiment with a few filters in ps to get a painterly artistic look out of this. It has potential.