Welcome to Twenty-Twelve
January 1st, 2012
“You cannot see wilderness from a road.
What you see from a road is something different- a scene, a panorama, a picture;
but you do not feel anything.”
–Edward Abbey
Getting this new year started off with a post. I’m looking forward to 2012 with hope. It could be a great year. A lot of whether that is true or not depends on us. Let’s all do what we can to make it a great year.
These are a couple more photos of Kat and Brooke as we wandered on down Wirepass Canyon toward Buckskin Gulch. It’s a beautiful canyon and Kat and Brooke are beautiful and talented models. A photographer like me couldn’t really ask for much more. It doesn’t get much better than this.
But what isn’t getting any easier is figuring out the best way to edit these slot canyon files and what software to use. I worked these first with Nikon’s View NX2. But when I got done I didn’t like what they looked like. So I started over using PhotoShop Elements 9 this time and doing the RAW conversions in Camera Raw. I liked those results much better. That is what you are seeing here. The rendering of the colors in the canyon is much different. I think these are more realistic…a better representation of what it really looks like. It looks so simply unearthly down in there that it is a real challenge. But I was seeing artifacts and blocked up patches of color in what the Nikon software was doing, so I didn’t want to use that.
I’m on the road for family visits right now, so I’m working on my laptop…which adds another element of variation in what I’m doing…though the laptop screen is calibrated with the same instrument as the desktop computer that I usually use.
Once again, your comments on how these look to you are encouraged. The photos in the last post were processed with Nikon View NX2, if you want to compare. But I didn’t have the problems with artifacts and color blocks in the last batch.
5 Responses to “Welcome to Twenty-Twelve”
1Lin
January 2nd, 2012 @ 1:33 am
Happy New Year, Dave.
These photos are gorgeous. Alas I can’t offer any highbrow technical analyses like your other photographic commenters, but I can tell you that they make me smile with delight when I look at them, which is good enough for me.
BTW, you have me hooked on Edward Abbey. Rich bought me Desert Solitaire for Christmas 🙂
2Robert
January 2nd, 2012 @ 6:59 pm
A little back and forth comparison looks like the Nikon NX left a bit more cyan in the canyon walls. Would have to look at the full resolution image to see if it’s the color or a difference in converting the RAW file. Could be some of the primary colors were over saturating in the RAW file and lost shape in those areas. Adobe Camera Raw could be using it’s highlight recovery process to compensate.
You shouldn’t have to be a physicist to choose the correct hammer.
3dave
January 2nd, 2012 @ 11:38 pm
Lin,
I’m so pleased that you are enjoying these photos. I’m also sure you’ll enjoy Desert Solitaire. Abbey’s love for the desert southwest makes that book a joy. And his account of his trip into Glen Canyon before it was flooded to become Lake Powell (the dam is at Page, AZ, a few miles from Wirepass Canyon) and all that was lost forever when it was covered by water is heartbreaking.
If you ever make it to the US and want a tour of this part of the country I’d be more than pleased and honored to show you some of the highlights. It doesn’t all require a lot of hiking and climbing. In fact, Bryce Canyon is extremely accessible (and very much full of people because of that) and it may well be the most beautiful spot on the planet.
4Dave Swanson
January 3rd, 2012 @ 6:04 pm
It is hard for us as viewers of your images to make serious analysis of the correctness of the colors. Having been in the slot canyons around there I know that the colors change greatly with the light.
I like how the oranges show up more in the sun lit areas of the canyon walls, as they should in this last set, and that the shadowed walls look like that earthy purple that I remember rather than magenta, like your previous set.
But as I said, it is hard for us to know what you were seeing at that moment. Those rock walls, like the Grand Canyon nearby burst out with so many colors when the light is just right.
With either set however I am happy that you attempted to represent them as you saw them and did not bang up the saturation as most people do in order to get that fake, bright, glowing red rock that may or may not ever exist.
For what it is worth this last set pleases me much more than the set prior.
5Lin
January 5th, 2012 @ 5:50 am
Dave, wow, thank you very much – I’d love that. One day I hope!
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