Mark Metternich
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
|
The Image:
Before this moment of sunrise pink/red color, a spectacular thunder cell of fierce lightning moved across the sky from left to right in the far distance. I took no shots because I was helping others. Plus we had to be totally prepared to get out of the area as fast as possible if the wind shifted toward us.
Settings:
Canon 11-24@13mm (cropped to 1x1)
Sony A7R2
f/9
1.0 sec
100 ISO
Single file.
Processing:
In Lightroom Raw I processed this as best as I could, yet stayed fairly conservative. As I am ever expanding my workflow to include more of the awesome benefits of Photoshop 32-bit RAW Smart Objects (allowing us to now access many critical super finesse tools in Photoshop like Layers, Layer Masks, Luminosity Masks, Color Masks, Layer Style “Blend If” Blending, Selections tools and so much more, but still be in 32 lossless Raw!). This image was basically nearly finished in 32-bit. The printability of working extra-lossless like this is really astonishing. A client came into Nevada Art Printers (Vegas) the other day (while Robert Park and I were teaching master printmaking) to pick up his image I helped him to finish. He went out the door with a 7.5-foot panorama Lumachrome HD acrylic mount (the best quality super gloss photo paper in the world now by a substantial margin) that was about ⅔ cropped out of a Nikon D850 (so 16-20 MP) and it looked awesome! I think a real testament to both 32-bit Smart Object losslessness as well as some brand new sharpening methods never seen before. Robert is a mad scientist who has been pioneering some techniques that totally blow my mind. I have not only been testing some of them, but also trying to find ways to push them further still! So yes, total geek stuff! 
I’d also like to share (with those who do not know already) that both Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw now have Luminance Range Masking and color range masking. Although these are the first iterations for the Raw converter, and not as powerful as the similar and super powerful Layer Style Blending Options (Blend If) in Photoshop, I believe they do have the ability to push the boundaries of quality, dynamic range and a few other things further in Raw that ever before. I’ll sometimes use them to increase compression (even further than was previously possible) in the highlights or shadows (or both) in some very wide dynamic range images. This allows one to potentially push contrast further without clipping highlights or shadows. This can mean a little less masking in Photoshop.
Scouting tip for more “original” images:
For those who want to know a little more about how I sometimes (once in a while) find locations lesser seen or some that I have never seen photographed, I put out a free 7 minute video on Youtube entitled “How to find New and Original Locations!“ about Scouting using Google Earth and then creating Paths there to load into a GPS unit. Sometimes this can help a photographer find new stuff, plot out a potential path to try to get to a new location, load it into a GPS (which are CHEAP today) and then show up (maybe by foot, maybe by vehicle or even 4WD…) and follow the path on your GPS! I have a place in the SW I am going to photograph for the 3rd time this year, and take people to, that I think is as amazingly unique and maybe as photogenic as White Pocket but I can not find a single SW expert friend who can tell me where I got the test shots! That kind of originality is challenging to find today but always gets me excited! What is more fun than getting off the worn, beaten path and finding things original and epic at the same time!? I have several new paths I am going to follow later this week in Arizona and Utah. I can't wait!
Safety!
There is much to talk about when it comes to safety! But, for those adventurers going out into the SW to get images, know that one can find themselves stranded (or worse) in many SW desert locations for days until the dirt roads and tracks dry up! In the upper 90 degree weather, that is not a fun prospect! Especially if you need to get back home or attend to personal responsibilities.... My best friend and his wife got caught out here last year and simply waited out a couple of hot days until the terrain was safe to drive. Fortunately, they said they were ok with it because they got great shots!!!
So my strong suggestion is to come over prepared!!! It can be life or death out there easily, especially during summer heat and monsoon season! Personally, in my 4WD, I bring water for at least a week, food for the same, sand trax (devices designed to get you out of sand…) extra rugged off-road spare tire in case I blow a tire, 2 industrial sized fix-a-flats, a generator, a separate window AC unit, extra fuel, window covers (to block out the light) comfortable bedding, GPS, inverter, air compressor and many other things… Again, I hate hearing about people getting hurt or dying out there, so be careful!
FYI, I will be on the road for a while so communications will be sketchy at best for a while.
I hope everyone is having an awesome summer of photography and life.
All the best to you and yours and Great Light to you!
Edited on Jul 30, 2018 at 03:13 PM · View previous versions
|
