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"Zion Tree"

This morning I read a blog post from an acquaintance on G+, Alan Majchrowicz. It was about "Bringing Life to  Old Photos". I definitely could relate to his words since I also have a habit of reviewing images that were shot years  earlier. The image above is a product of that habit. Whenever I return from a trip I will review all of the images. I will process all the favorites and then it may be months or years later before I go back and take another look through all the "losers". Oh heck, I shouldn't call them that. The favorites were probably the tens out of the group.There may possibly be many eights and nines in the remaining images and maybe a ten that I overlooked first time around. This can happen because my expectations are different immediately after a trip. I usually have a few shots that I am really excited about but sometimes I don't think the final image conveys how excited I was when I initially created the image. Several years later my mind has cleared of all those expectations. Software, my processing skills, and my vision have also changed and I hope for the better.
"Zion Tree" was taken three years ago in Utah's Zion National Park. I may have liked it better as a color image if it had a rich blue sky and better light to contrast with the snow and red rock. The light was flat and the sky was gray. When I looked back at it a few months ago, I thought "it may make a nice black and white". After making all the adjustments in Photoshop I was pleased  but I did feel it needed one last tweak. Most of the Topaz filters seem to be used a little heavy handed  by most photographers but a little bump from "Topaz Detail" worked perfectly to add a little texture back into the snow. I created a separate layer for that adjustment and then masked the layer so it only had an affect on the snow.