A client, RSD, held their annual sales kickoff meeting high in the Alps above Gstaad, a fine community all right about an hour from Montreux.
This pic, a bit of a cliche to be sure, is the result of several key processing enhancements.
First, it’s five frames blended and tone-mapped using Photomatix Pro. When I brought the TIFF into camera raw, I was amazed by the register accuracy. So just the same I went and made some detail / sharpness adjustments in camera raw.
In Photoshop, it required a crop from the original. I used Topaz — quirky given the memory constraints but still a fine tool — to bring up local contrast to create the texture, and to boost some of the saturation.
I used a mask to reduce some of the overzealous pixel effects, especially on the water.
Surface blur enabled me to remove some of the distracting detail in the surrounding trees. I really wanted to keep attention on the rocks and water.
Finally, an elliptical selection, quick mask, gaussian blur and fill with black: to produce a bit of vignette around those same tree detail areas.
Enjoy!
Tags: Alps, Alpine stream, synopshots, Switzerland, Suisse, Schweitz
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