Detour to the Badlands

I took a break from processing Route 66 photographs and worked through a folder full of images I shot earlier this year. The photograph above is a nine-shot panorama that I shot while exploring the Badlands in South Dakota.

Processing Notes: I processed the images using Lightroom until I was satisfied with the overall color and contrast (I did not bracket my exposures, so this is not an HDR image). I then exported the image as DNG files to my desktop and pointed Adobe Bridge to that area and sent the files through Photomerge to stitch the panorama. I then cropped the image in Photoshop, adjusted the contrast with Curves, the color with Hue/Saturation and tweaked the color on the edges of the sky by painting in a layer that was set to Color blending mode. The final image was large enough that I could print it at about 18x64". You can click on any of the images to see larger versions.

This is what one of the shots looks like before making any adjustments in Lightroom and what the same photograph looked like right before I started to stitch the images together in Photoshop:

This is a prime example of why it's so important to really understand how to really understand what you're doing in Photohsop. If you know of someone who would like to upgrade their skills, then consider giving the gift of one of my books, DVDs or seminars for the holidays. You can find info about all I have to offer on my corporate web site.