Before and After: Mt. Wilson in the Fall

You can purchase “Mt Wilson in the Fall” HERE
When it comes to my favorite time of year here in Colorado, the answer is easily fall. Even though I predominately photograph international locations, I always try to make time to explore the Rockies when it comes to the end of September and the start of October each year. This image was captured on Last Dollar Road, just above Telluride, Colorado as a fall storm moved through the valley. If you ever get a chance to experience the San Juan Mountain region during the height of the fall colors, you won’t regret it. Feel free to sign up with my newsletter in the right hand side bar to be notified of my next Colorado fall colors workshop in the area.

Post Processing:

This image was edited purely in Adobe Lightroom. I started out by lightly darkening the shadows as well as adding a touch on contrast. I then adjusted the “Whites” and “Blacks” sliders to fine tune the contrast of the image. I then added a little vibrance and a dash of saturation while bringing back a little more of the warmer tones using the white balance brush in the localized adjustments section. Lastly I used the clone tool and removed dust spots and a few trees that stood out on the bottom frame edge.

Equipment Used:

Camera: Canon 1D Mark IV
Lens: Canon 70-200 2.8L IS II
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/100 sec at f/11

Before/After:

http://www.colbybrownphotography.com/assets/before.jpg

Tags: Adobe Lightroom, Before and After, Canon 1D Mark IV, Colorado, Fall Colors

10 comments

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PBX

That's a great photo. How did you took that photo?

Senior Pictures

I think you have really catch a wonderful natural scenes. I have really impressed with your natural photography skills. I always look for this type of natural scenes so that i could capture in my camera...

FelixForero

Eso de no parlar ingles me deja sin entender sinembargo le veo y me emosiona

cragginstylie

Colby, try as I might I can't see the trees you removed with the clone tool. I see a dust spot, but no missing trees!

Which brings up a slightly different topic: How do 'you' keep dust out of your equipment and once it's found it's way onto the sensor how do you remove it? By that I mean, do you pay for 'professional' cleaning services or have you mastered that skill yourself?

ColbyBrown moderator

@cragginstylie I am impressed if you can find a dust spot on a 700px wide image. I am going to go search for it now :)

As for dust, I send my DSLRs to get cleaned a twice a year. Beyond that I have a sensor cleaning kit from Arctic Butterfly that I use on a more regular basis to keep dust out of my sensor and off my images.

TheVinceRussell

@colbybrownphoto Amazing stuff! Great picture and edit.

TIBoine

@colbybrownphoto neato. I also wanted to create a before and after post. But couldnt find out how to make that slider. tips?

colbybrownphoto

@TIBoine If you have a wordpress website, there are a few options out there, none are very easy to get working. Had my web team do it.

@colbybrownphoto oh. no wp is too tricky. hate coding. its funny how something that simple is so hard to do

Steve Sherron

Thanks for the info about how you processed the beautiful photo. I watched your interview with TWIT photo last week and as a result, I bought the book you recommended, Understanding Exposure. What a great book for a new photographer myself.