This is one more view from the other night at Utah Lake. For this photo I would like to share the steps I took to bring this photo to the finalized product.

First I started out by transporting the 5 raw images into Photomatix Pro. I made a few adjustments and then saved the results. I then imported the original Raw Photos into Lightroom 3 beta and processed them again. I added elements of sharpening, contrast, saturation, and I added an increase of a half stop. At this point I ran the sync so that all photos had the same edits, and then exported this batch to Photomatix Pro and re-ran another HDR. Both of the images had good and bad. In the second batch the noise in the sky was dramatically increased. The rocks had much more detail and color. I took both photos into CS4. I wanted the sky and reflection from the first with the rocks of the second. Once I had taken the dark rocks out of the photo one more problem was present. On the edges of the rocks and ice where the bright orange and yellow touched there was a bright red line. At this point I again used CS4 and painted the color of the water where this line was present.

I like the dark background with the bright yellows and oranges. It offers a nice contrast to the foreground.
I like the texture of the rocks.
I like the color of the rocks and how bright they are.
I like the small patch of ice it brings interest into the photo and breaks the color of the reflection and rocks.

Let me know what you think, and thank you for visiting my site.

~wr~