1609_1348 Mistaya River
This is where the Mistaya River plunges into a deep canyon. It's a two image composite, both shots taken from the same spot with different exposures. I didn't use HDR blending because the water was quite different in each and would not blend well. And I considered - but didn't use - a neutral density grad in the field.
Instead, I took the best exposure of the sky and distant mountain, selected it in CS6 and created a new layer, superimposed it on the best exposure of the foreground, and blended to taste. Flattened the layers. Smoothed the barely visible cut lines (you can't even see them on the 300 ppi version). After that there was a lot of dodging and burning, just like in the old darkroom days but with more control (because in digital adjustments you can undo a mistake). Also some selective colour adjustments, warming the foreground a little.
Strange, in a way: all this manipulation to get it to look as much as possible as it did when I saw it in real life. Go figure.
Photographed in Banff National Park, Alberta. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2016 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
1609_1348 Mistaya River
This is where the Mistaya River plunges into a deep canyon. It's a two image composite, both shots taken from the same spot with different exposures. I didn't use HDR blending because the water was quite different in each and would not blend well. And I considered - but didn't use - a neutral density grad in the field.
Instead, I took the best exposure of the sky and distant mountain, selected it in CS6 and created a new layer, superimposed it on the best exposure of the foreground, and blended to taste. Flattened the layers. Smoothed the barely visible cut lines (you can't even see them on the 300 ppi version). After that there was a lot of dodging and burning, just like in the old darkroom days but with more control (because in digital adjustments you can undo a mistake). Also some selective colour adjustments, warming the foreground a little.
Strange, in a way: all this manipulation to get it to look as much as possible as it did when I saw it in real life. Go figure.
Photographed in Banff National Park, Alberta. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2016 James R. Page - all rights reserved.