Mt. St. Helens at Sunrise

[Ralph Lewis]

All along the ridge line there is a narrow band of color almost like it has been outlined with a felt tip pen. Any idea why this happens? This was shot as a raw image and converted to jpeg without editing.



Camera Model Name: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS
Tv(Shutter Speed): 1/30Sec.
Av(Aperture Value): F5.6
Metering Modes: Evaluative metering
ISO Speed: 1600
Lens: EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS
Focal Length: 154.0 mm
Original Image Quality: RAW
White Balance: Auto
Parameters
Tone Curve : Standard
Contrast : 0
Sharpness : 3
Color saturation : 0
Color tone : 0
Long exposure noise reduction : Disable
High ISO speed noise reduction : Disable
Color Space: sRGB

[beetwo77]

Overall I like the image. I would make the following comments though, I hope they help!

- its a bit hard to tell but the colour fringe you see at the ridge line could be what is called 'Chromatic Abberation' (CA). This is more prominent on zoom lenses especially the kit lenses. CA tends to be purpleish and appear at boundaries of high contrast i.e. between the dark of the ridge line and light of the sky. I could be completely wrong however!
- I would try to bring up the shadows in the foreground to show some more detail and use a layer mask to keep the colour in the sky just right
- The image appears to me to be not quite straight. Am I being too picky or are you not quite level when taking this one?
- I would give the photo a bit more contrast and a fractionally more saturation but these are very perosnal choices

Nice work. Hope to see more in the future.

[lerabu]

To be able to just to photograph Mt St Helen's makes me envious of you!

I agree with the above poster. What I think should be slo done is have the horizon straightened out so to have it straight with the photograph's frames.

I would also try to crop a little so that the mountain is to the left and not in the dead center of the photo so that you would have the mountain overlooking the town. This is just personal preference though

Nice one!

[EOBeav]

I just drove by MSH a couple of days ago. :-)

[BK553]

it's crooked.

[Krusty79]

Regarding your original question, it looks like the thick band of clouds is only allowing the orange color to appear below it. The band of clouds is too thick to allow the orange color through it.

I would also agree with the comments that the horizon is not level and it's usually better to move your subject off-center, unless it is a very compelling one. Nice shot, though.