I know, I know: I've posted so many of these. The reason for this one is that it is an older image: dare I say it "A JPG!!" Aaarrrrhhhh. Yes before I became enlightened and began shooting exclusively RAW. If you have not descovered the power of "quick mask" in photoshop, then I strongly urge you do. The fore ground rocks are nearly the same tones as the BG and in the original image nearly blend into the BG. A quick mask is used to isolate the rocks from the BG. This is rendered into a layer. Curves are then used to adjust the tones to create contrast and settle the rocks into the fore-ground. This is shot at f-13 with a 100-400 zoom. This will introduce "Airey" rings around pixels of large contrast. On a sensor of only 8 mega-pixels these rings will become more pronouced. It means that if too much sharpening is done overly hard edges will be produced creating an artificial appearance. Depending on the sensor, pixel density on the sensor and the f stop used there will be a point where pushing f-stop for sharpnes or DOF will be compromised. That said, I should not have used f-13, and it is why I did not attempt any more sharpening. Whew!!
