Sunset from Snow Bowl Arizona

[chesty]

The size seems to be a little big for the resolution.  I'll have to fix that tonight.

[Jonathan Wienke]

You should try bracketing the shot, and blending the images together. I have an example of this in my web site Visual Vacations. You will get a much better tonal balance between the sun, sky, and ground.

[bdbuck]

For quickies, I use a "density mask" which I get by ctrl-clicking on any one of the 4 channels in the channels palette -- RGB composite or individual R, G, or B channels -- whichever one works best for what I want. Add the density mask as a layer mask to whatever layer is on top or to a curves layer and then you can tweak the mask with curves or levels to adjust it further. Works pretty good.

Brian.

[chesty]

I'll have to try both techniques.  Another that I heard of was Fred Miranda's DRI.  Of course it is a fully automated plug in for photoshop.  But it only costs 9 bucks.  But if a free technique works that gives me control.  I am all for it.

[chesty]

Not sure where to put this.  Figured this would be the best spot.  Just interested in a critique.

[chesty]

Here is another one from this same area and time.

[chesty]

I have tried this a couple of times.  In fact that was my intent this time.  But I just get impatient having to unhide the portions of the image underneath that I want to show thru.  Therefore, I didn't do it.

Is there a better way than manual labor?

[Jonathan Wienke]

The technique I used with this image was to play with the layer blending options. I stacked the 3 exposures with the brightest on the bottom and the darkest on top, and then played with the blending properties. (Right-click on the layer, and select Blending Options from the menu that pops up.) By holding down the ALT key and dragging the black slider on "This Layer" (which will split it in half) I made the darkest areas of the 2 upper layers transparent, causing the brighter areas of the underlying layers to show through. I spent about 10 minutes twiddling the sliders around before I got a blend I liked, then flattened and saved. No airbrushing layer masks involved. The result speaks for itself.