Eastern Sierra Adv day2am-2

Good thing the sun came up, it was my only possibility for redemption for the morning. Seriously, to blow such a killer opportunity, I loose sleep over those. Well, the sun came up and that great, killer skies for star trails became ouch for sun.

It is no wonder that one of the first shapes I saw in the rocks of Alabama Hills was that of an ass! Now to get the shot I needed the 16Fish to get the shape. To use that lens to get the shape, I had to be in the photo. That kinda took away from it all. Having CS5 and knowing what Content-Aware fill can do, I simple put the camera on Interval Timer, stepped out of the frame, had the camera take some clicks and then a quick finish in post. You can’t see the camera or tripod or where Content-Aware made them go away. Damn, freakin cool!

Not really moving too far, I came across this nose. Now I wanted to do a little HDR because it brings out some of the cool color in the rocks. CS5 does have a new HDR engine which does a good job but it’s too many steps for impatient me so I still prefer Photomatix Pro which I used here. Matt does a great job explaining CS5 HDR basics here so check it out.

And then back to plain and simple. I like plain and simple of after this morning, I could handle plain and simple. The finishing again was all done in CS5 using the technique Stephanie & I taught at Photoshop World, no pluggins, all CS5. Ah, this morning is over with, time to go lick my wounds and learn from my mistakes.

Photos captured by D3x, 16Fish / 45PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film