Red Chair at Bridger Bowl

[howland.david]

I took this picture last Wednesday while hiking up for some early season skiing. I did some work in photoshop, but I'm still not happy with it. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make the colors "pop" more, the snow on the bottom less over-exposed, and more importantly, get rid of the annoying lens flare? I'd also like to bring out some more details in the background of the picture where the clouds are a little blown out too. Thanks!

[wulf]

You've already got some bright colours in there so I'm not sure that "pop" is the right thing to aim for. The overall image just doesn't seem to come together for me. Even without that distracting lens flare, you have things like the red chair moving out of the scene (rather than having room to move across the scene), not helped by seeming to be attached to the very top of the mountains.

I think that it calls for a reshoot rather than a photoshop; it looks like the area has the potential for some awesome views but not from this particular position.

Out of interest, was the chair moving? Even from another view point, you would have the challenge of a very wide range from dark to light and it would give you more options if you had multiple exposures of the same shot, so you could combine the best from each. Moving elements would make this more tricky.

Also, could you tell us a bit about the gear you had available and the settings used?

Thanks,

Wulf