Ragged IIby
TychoComment: Hi Ozzy, This is a great photo! In preparing it for printing, try this:
(1) select the sky with a 2 or 3 pixel feather and put it on its own layer (duplicate layer, then delete the ground)--this is a pain in the neck, but it's worth it; I use the polygonal lasso tool, but you can also use the pen tool or the magic wand when it is still in color. Once selected, expand your selection by about 5 pixels (to avoid any halos between the ground and the sky)
(2) Remember to put the ground on its own layer, too. --so now you've got three layers: sky, ground, and the main photo.
(3) select the sky layer and clone around the edges so that all signs of the rock and ground are removed.
(4) use a nice cleaning tool like NeatImage to get rid of the noise (you should still be in color now). I sometimes use gaussian blur, median or dust & scratches to clean up. If it is really bad, just select the blue with a feather to the clouds and use the paint brush to select and paint an even color where blue should be.
(5) Do any adjustments to the Ground layer--be careful of oversharpening, as this photo above seems to have some signs of that.
(6) Once both layers are lovely and beautiful and look great together, then you can convert each layer to b/w individually. Then adjust them again so they look good together.
(7) This is a good time to check to make sure your ground layer's edges against the sky look good. Often, they are too sharp and look fake, so if you need to, select the sky area on the Ground layer, expand your selection and feather it even more. Usually, this means a feather of 2-3 pixels, but sometimes more.
(8) Look good? Flatten the layers and your work is done!
It looks like you did some of these things already. I just thought I'd share my process as you ready your photos for printing. Good luck! This is an amazing image!
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