Vernal refers to Spring so it is ironic that I had to travel from Monument Valley and Natural Bridges to finally see some Fall colors at Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Utah. To get the most of out of the Fall colors, I shot at night with a blazing campfire to enhance the colors. I have included a second image just to prove there really were some Fall colors. This is my first attempt at an image like this. Comments appreciated.
I missed Jones hole. Anyway I am currently in central Illinois and heading East to visit kids and grandkids in NY. Will probably winter on the east coast and then return to the southwest in March.
I always like star shots, so I want the first one to work. For me, the biggest problem is that your fire was too big, so the trees are bright orange, and the stars are somewhat difficult to see.
Here's a really quick rendition. It's looking a little overprocessed, but if you work with the original file you can probably get something a little better. I lowered the luminance and saturation of the orange and red channels to make the foreground a little less obvious. Then I increased exposure and saturation on the sky quite a bit to make it brighter and bring out some more color to balance against the bottom. I also increased exposure on the very bottom to try to get the trees down there a little closer to the others.
