Been to the South Coyote Buttes several times in the past, and always particularly loved the colors after sunset. With the softer light, the colors really jump out of the rock.
Because of that, I've been wanting to get a sunset shot at the Southern Wave for years now. Last week, finally pulled it off.
It was cloudy, windy, and drizzling rain, so no soft sunlight in the sky. Luckily the rain was coming from behind me, soaking the back of my camera but leaving my lens clean. The wet rock also showed the color a little more, making up for the lack of clear sky.
I'm planning on getting this printed on large acrylic (probably 30x20") so if there's any C&C, nitpicks or adjustments you would recommend, please let me know!
Fantastic, Patrick! I can tell the colors were helped by the rain, so rich and deep, and you have managed to create a fresh feel from a very iconic location. Deserves my vote! With this aspect ratio I think you’ll be closer to 30x24, which will be absolutely stunning on acrylic 😎
I'd print this too!
I'm in agreement with excising that distracting branch. Also, may be just an artifact of resizing for the web, but there is a pretty prominent sharpening halo along the transition from rocks to sky. I would pay strict attention to preparing the final file for print to ensure that is eliminated.
Ross Martin wrote:
Fantastic, Patrick! I can tell the colors were helped by the rain, so rich and deep, and you have managed to create a fresh feel from a very iconic location. Deserves my vote! With this aspect ratio I think you’ll be closer to 30x24, which will be absolutely stunning on acrylic 😎
Thanks Ross! I'm glad the rain colors showed through for you. I have another pic of this scene from a minute later at a wider zoom that I took with the intention of having leeway to crop to the 3:2 ratio, since it seems like for acrylics, 3:2 is most common and other aspect ratios get more expensive. But for uploading and sharing, I liked this 4:3 ratio shot.
(The print store nearest me, proprints.com, only has 3:2 ratio as an option, but they're also cheaper than the first several results I found on Google and I've been happy with their quality in the past. If you have some print store recommendations that do 4:3 acrylics, I'd love to hear them!)
war72 wrote:
Great pic. I would personally leave out the sky, and keep it abstract..
Thanks for the comment! I do think that a more top-down composition would look pretty neat, maybe from further away and higher up with a zoomier lens. Just didn't have that planned on this trip.
stanparker wrote:
Leave the sky in, remove that distracting branch. Lovely shot.
Thanks! The branch will be easy enough to remove.
kirbic wrote:
I'd print this too!
I'm in agreement with excising that distracting branch. Also, may be just an artifact of resizing for the web, but there is a pretty prominent sharpening halo along the transition from rocks to sky. I would pay strict attention to preparing the final file for print to ensure that is eliminated.
Thank you! Good pointer on the rock/sky transition. I used DxO Photolab's control points function for local adjustment to darken the sky a tad by -1.0 exposure levels. I'll go back and play with it and see if I can get that to look better. Or do you think it'd look more natural to leave the sky looking brighter?
Good question on the sky... don't know if I really have an answer for you. I can say that I often do darken skies a bit myself to bring out a bit more detail and contrast in what otherwise can appear as rather monochrome, unappealing gray. Don't know how the un-darkened sky looks in this shot, but I think I would try just enhancing contrast in that area rather than darkening overall, and keep the transition between the affected and unaffected areas a little broader to mask the transition? May take some experimenting. I don't know DXO really at all, so not sure what capabilities exist there. My M.O would be to export a 16-bit TIFF and work it a bit in Ps.
Fabulous image. Agree with removing the sky if your goal is to feature the abstract nature of the rock. Well done. Was it difficult to obtain a permit?
p.1 #10 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
Fantastic image, the wet rock really shows the color. Leave the sky as is and background butte to give a sense of place and I think it adds to the composition. I would love to see that final print! Where will you get it made?
Were you worried about mud on the road? How was it getting out? I have a truck camper and figured if I ever caught in the rain back there I'd just camp for a few days waiting for it to dry.
p.1 #12 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
Thank you all for the feedback!
Jim Dockery wrote:
Fantastic image, the wet rock really shows the color. Leave the sky as is and background butte to give a sense of place and I think it adds to the composition. I would love to see that final print! Where will you get it made?
Were you worried about mud on the road? How was it getting out? I have a truck camper and figured if I ever caught in the rain back there I'd just camp for a few days waiting for it to dry.
Thanks Jim! I agree about leaving the sky, I like having the context and sense of place. My main acrylic provider in the past has been proprints.com, they're only a couple towns away from me. A 30x20" is about $97 and a 36x24" is about $129. Those would restrict me to 3:2 aspect ratio. I found a few sites that do 4:3 aspect ratio acrylics, but they seem to be more expensive ($187ish for a 32x24".) So while I would prefer 4:3, the cost difference is enough to give me pause. Plus I know proprints.com makes good acrylics; anyone else it would be an unknown. (Open to suggestions if you have any! )
As far as the road, honestly it was fine at the time. The rain even improved the hiking experience, because the wet sand was much firmer than the usual dry powder out there! When we got back out to House Rock Road, we were able to get back to the highway without issue and without lots of clay stuck to the wheels either. Guess it wasn't enough rain to make it an issue.
Alan Milnes wrote:
Fabulous image. Agree with removing the sky if your goal is to feature the abstract nature of the rock. Well done. Was it difficult to obtain a permit?
Not too difficult, I got the advanced permit a few months ahead via recreation.gov, rather than chancing the daily lottery. It opens at noon mountain time on the first of every month, so I just set an alarm on my phone and grabbed it when it became available.
kirbic wrote:
Good question on the sky... don't know if I really have an answer for you. I can say that I often do darken skies a bit myself to bring out a bit more detail and contrast in what otherwise can appear as rather monochrome, unappealing gray. Don't know how the un-darkened sky looks in this shot, but I think I would try just enhancing contrast in that area rather than darkening overall, and keep the transition between the affected and unaffected areas a little broader to mask the transition? May take some experimenting. I don't know DXO really at all, so not sure what capabilities exist there. My M.O would be to export a 16-bit TIFF and work it a bit in Ps....Show more →
I did a couple more drafts, this time with the shot taken a few seconds after that last one with a wider zoom. This one I cropped to 3:2 for the potential print. I cloned out that branch like a few of you recommended.
Here's one with the sky darkened, but the control point tool radius eased up on. Does that help with the edge artifacts at all? https://i.imgur.com/hWpuyea.jpeg
p.1 #13 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
I really like the wider composition! To me it is a more compelling composition than the tighter one. I would leave the bush, to me it is not a distraction, but adds to the scene.
As for the sky, I am liking the un-darkened version, if I were processing it I might try to bring out a little more contrast in it without darkening. I can still see the halo on the un-darkened version, and I think that may be a sharpening artifact.
p.1 #14 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
kirbic wrote:
I really like the wider composition! To me it is a more compelling composition than the tighter one. I would leave the bush, to me it is not a distraction, but adds to the scene.
As for the sky, I am liking the un-darkened version, if I were processing it I might try to bring out a little more contrast in it without darkening. I can still see the halo on the un-darkened version, and I think that may be a sharpening artifact.
Thanks for that! I will leave the bush in. When I tried to up the contrast in the sky, oddly enough it brightened it. (From memory, the clouds behind were pretty flat.)
As far as those halos on the edge of the rock and sky, I've been playing with the various settings all morning in DxO. They seemed to stay there in my exports that are web sized (1600pix long) no matter what settings I tweaked, either in sharpness or the export resizing options. However, the halos and artifacts are totally gone when I exported at full resolution (80 megapixel hi-res mode out of this beat up Olympus.) Has to be something with the export resizing. At least the full res version for the print will be okay!
p.1 #15 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
I don't know if DXO's export resizing has customizable resampling algorithms ala Ps... if so that may be one way to avoid the halos on web exports. It's certainly the resampling algorithm that is the source of the issue, since they are not present on the full-res image. Not an unexpected result.
p.1 #16 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
kirbic wrote:
I don't know if DXO's export resizing has customizable resampling algorithms ala Ps... if so that may be one way to avoid the halos on web exports. It's certainly the resampling algorithm that is the source of the issue, since they are not present on the full-res image. Not an unexpected result.
Looking at the export resizing options, I have three choices: bilinear, bicubic, and bicubic sharper. All three resulted in the same halo artifacts in the sky area. At least it's a learning point for me on this one! I'm guessing that PS has a lot more options since it's a more advanced program.
I just sent that corrected shot to proprints, so once I get it back and on the wall, I'll post up how it looks. Thank you again everyone for your comments!
p.1 #17 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
I remember standing at the exact location to capture the wave pattern and the colors were so different. Amazing what colors come out with a little rain. Just beautiful, very nice image.
p.1 #18 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
keepclicking wrote:
I remember standing at the exact location to capture the wave pattern and the colors were so different. Amazing what colors come out with a little rain. Just beautiful, very nice image.
Thank you! Yeah I've taken pictures of it during the day, both sunny and overcast, and have always wanted to go back for the dusk shot. The rain was just a bonus.
p.1 #20 · Southern Wave Dusk - South Coyote Buttes
40Driggs wrote:
I really like the composition and you're right about the colors coming out in the lighting.
Thank you!
Finally got the acrylic print in, along with two to be companion pieces on the wall. Interestingly, the first version of this print had a manufacturing defect and ProPrints had to send me a reprint. They were great about it though, they responded within 20 minutes of my email and said they'd resend it.
So, here's how it looks on my wall. I picked the other two and positioned them because I wanted the general stone wave leading lines to lead into each other. Both others are shots I've posted here on FM before too.
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