Redwoods in Oakland, CA

[BlackRockBacon]

This shot is from Roberts Regional Recreation Area...I read about it online, and ended up going the same day...Redwoods with in 20 minutes of where I live....of course I'm all over that.

Original Image:

I haven't gotten a new Tripod since my 30 year old Velbon fell off a small cliff and broke so shots in the dark woods is kinda tough.

After about an hour and a half of messing around I came up with this:

Converted to B&W after a little flip flopping between color.
In lightroom I applied a -2 stop graduated filter to control the highlights around the trees.
Used another one on the bottom of the image to help balance it a little more.
Added a little fill light and clarity.
Took the RAW file into HDR Efex Pro, and tweaked that until I got something I liked.
Opened the resulting .tif in in Photoshop where I applied an unsharp mask
Using the Color Efex Pro plug-in for Photoshop I applied Tonal Contrast.

I'm interested in what you guys have to say about it.

[pcr1968]

A vast improvment.. Nice when you can get results like that.

Pete...

[mshockley]

The difference is incredible. Love all the great detail in the wood in the foreground and that little peak of sparkly sunshine midway right is perfect!

[BlackRockBacon]

Thanks everyone...glad you liked it