+++ The Weekly Landscape Thread - #32, 2025.09.19

[In response to "Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Arizona, fall at sunrise" by minniev]
Lovely! I really like the color composition, light, and sky. My only question would be whether you considered cropping the bottom a bit tighter. To my mind. the photo doesn't really begin until just below the [road?]. I'd be interested in why you chose the crop you did, as I am not really experienced with landscape photography.

My wife and I just got back from a vacation in the Pacific Northwest. We took the Rocky Mountaineer train though the Canadian Rockies, travelling from Calgary to Vancouver, then on to Victoria and hopped on a seaplane to Seattle. We had never seen any of this country, and it was all wonderful. But the thing that most captivated us was Lake Louise -- it was like Shangri La. This photo is my attempt to bring the view home. Unfortunately, it looks like every other photo of Lake Louise. I'm not a landscape photographer and would welcome criticism from those who are. What should I have done differently? I know that the rocks at the base of the lake is a cliche, but I really like how they seem to blend with the reflections of the clouds, as though the rocks were calcified clouds themselves. I'm still too close to taking the photo to be able to judge these things objectively. How could I have taken a better shot? How might I process this one to enhance what's there? So far, I've basically just opened the shadows a bit. Any thoughts are welcome. I am not particularly thin-skinned, so feel free to express yourself for clarity more than for kindness.

Abisko was visited in return trip from Norway and basically it meant that bus stopped, tour guide said: river is in that direction, be back in 90 minutes, so biggest constraint was time. And avoiding other people: waiting to be able to get to best spot for viewing and photographing and avoiding others in frame.

These layers make image, also slightly visible light rays.

Wonderful place! I've photographed Lake Louise on several trips and it's always such an amazing location, in any season or weather. I've also visited Bill Neill's home gallery and seen some huge prints of the most amazing (and expensive) Lake Louise images of our time. It is a unique location. I think the rocks are great! They are very clear above the water, and recede below the water line, and you're right they sort of look like calcified clouds which is super interesting and makes your photo different than some others.

My first question is what software do you use for editing? It looks like you had some haze to deal with. You can clean that up with good editing tools but it will likely take some masking to target the areas where the haze is affecting the image most, which is mainly in the water. I probably wouldn't try to get rid of it all, but mitigate it. I'd be glad to give it a go in Lightroom (thinking contrast, clarity, dehaze, with masking to control where all that stuff happens, plus some leveling), then maybe some color tweaks if needed. if you want, I will show you what I'd do if it were mine. But of course all the final choices are in the artist's hands!

Hi Tom,
First off, welcome the Weekly Landscape Thread.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of your photos!

I like this photo, the lake looks beautiful, I’ve never visited it so I don’t know how the colours really are, and I assume they change with the seasons too, so I can only guess at how to edit this if I want to make it more “real”.
You asked about how else it could have been taken. Here’s a few thoughts,….
I like the rocks in the corner, nothing wrong with clichés if they work 😊
It’s nice how the reflection of the mountain peak on the right fits in perfectly between those stones.

Your position gives a nice composition with the “V” shaped valley and its inverted “V” in the reflection. All that seems to point to the middle. Maybe, if a convenient little fishing boat would have been there in the middle, it would have had 4 leading lines pointing at it.
A different time of day or a different season would, of course, make it look different. Perhaps a sunset or sunrise might shine its red light on the rocks in the distance? that might look cool.
Or, a night time shot with the stars visible could also possibly work?
Or a dusting of snow on the mountains ?
Sounds to me like some good reasons to go back a few times and enjoy this view some more.😉

You also asked how this version might be edited, I’m adding a version here, (hope you don’t mind) with a few minor changes. They are only based on my personal taste and what I imagined it might have looked like
See what you think,…

Changes:
-horizon level adjusted
-Slightly brighter and black level adjusted slightly
-made the central part of the image a little brighter, with more contrast and clarity added at the position where the 4 leading lines are pointing
-changed the hue of the water slightly to make it more blue and added contrast to remove a bit of the haze

I use a combination of software. For my raw processor I use NX Studio. For general processing, I use PaintShop Pro. For sharpening, noise reduction, and occasional local highlight/shadow tweaking, I use Topaz Photo AI. There was noticeable smoke around from all the forest fires in Canada. The day I took this was one of the clearer days. By all means, have at it. I would be most grateful for any tips or illustrations of techniques that you may wish to offer.

Hi, Fireplace33.

Thanks for taking the time to provide thoughtful feedback. It's really helpful to see the changes that you suggest, and they all look quite appropriate. And you've convinced me: I have to go back and try again. Lake Louise is just stunning!

Thanks, ArvoJ. I'm finding people's input quite instructive, and the physical instantiation of your suggestions make your point quite clear.

Arvo and Fireplace have given you some nice edits. Here's another, not much different than theirs, done in Lightroom.
Straightened.
Applied white and black points, shadow and highlight controls, contrast and clarity to whole image at modest levels.
Created a mask for the water and applied a more stringent dose of contrast, clarity, de-haze.
Created a second mask just for the mountain in the central "V" and applied a mild dose of those same sliders there.

There's more than one source of haziness involved in Lake Louise in general - smoke from wildfires that are common there, the "rock flour" that is present in all glacial lakes giving the water a milky appearance, and reflections which might look different from different angles at different times of day. It's always worth taking a few shots with a polarizer just in case that helps you achieve what you want. But there's hardly any way to ruin photos of these places, they are so darned beautiful.

Terrific, minniev! Thanks for the effort and the explanation. I've got lots to try from all the help I've gotten. It's much appreciated.

I just want to show you all the current state of my edits. This is my attempt to incorporate your many valuable suggestions. My editing skills may be more limited, but the concepts have certainly improved the work, at least to my mind. Thanks much.

The shots are wonderful! The trees clinging to the rocks are fascinating. I think you could process the last shot a bit more dramatically.

Very nice composition of a wonderful place. Thanks for sharing and it is so good to see you posting more frequently 😊

OMG colours here !!! I always find blue and orange are very complementing to each other.

Very nice detailed ,crips capture of a wonderful landscape. I liked the BW conversion too.

It is a very pretty leading line.

Thanks :-)
I'd be interested to see a dramatic edit of number 3 if anyone wants to have a go.

I'll try to do drama... DXO Nik Color Efex mostly: HDR Like preset and Foliage + Pro Contrast filters. Then some ClearView in DXO Lab. Result suffers from jpg pushing, especially visible in sky.