Fantastic image, love the colors and the crispy clouds and sand. Really like the low angle too, great work! :-)

Amazing capture! Great dof too!

An instant favorite. The composition, the sky, the details in the sand....
And I love the colors!

So many try very hard to avoid getting a foot print in their photos. Way to embrace it.

Fantastic image, love the colors,superbe!

Great shot! Love the detail in the foreground.

wow, fantastic

Amazing shot which works especially good for its simple composition and subject. Great sky.

Welcome back David! Wonderful image and processing. Who thought that sand, sky and clouds could be so beautiful?

C.

I love the processing in this. Did you pull the blue in the sky from the RAW file or did you introduce it during processing?

The low angle works for me and a marked improvement over the original frame. Somehow I expect to see a sandcrawler pass through the frame rather than a 4x4, it has the feel of being on another planet or perhaps I've watched Star Wars too many times ;) It's a great frame, I look forward to seeing more from this trip.

There's the 24 mm at work! I actually understood all of the specs. Progress :)

This is wonderful. The textures and colors are perfect.

this is so interesting. definitely not your typical "dunescape" shot. and of course the post-processing it quintessential chromasia. two thumbs up.

Great landscape. Love the angle and the fact you have got the not so much human destruction of the landscape as that will all blow away, but the fact humans have touched a pristine landscape. All the best.

Fascinatingly beautiful...

Striking, even more so when you see the original. I love the lines leading my eye up onto the dune.

I like everything about this photograph. The contrast between the smooth sand and the sand with tracks... the lighting, the angle.. and that sky and clouds are just plain magical.

Fantastic image! The colors, textures and light are amazing!!!

I love how endless this one feels... And I really want to see what's one the other side of that dune to the right.

That photo is just insane! Man, the clouds and the colour of the sky against the colour of the sand. It's stunning.

You ARE the master!

Awesome post-processing here!

Breathtaking! Just perfect and full of aura. Congratulations. Waiting for the next one :)

Simply amazing!!

Brilliant ! I really love the tracks, the contrast between the soft clouds ad the straightness of those tracks. The composition and the processing fit very well. Bravo !

Beautiful image and the sand is golden and grainy. Beautiful dof and sky!

I cannot believe what I see: Of course I'm fascinated of the capture, but more from your conception of the post processed shot. Crucially is the fact - that you see things which everbody will not assume in this scenery, and that's the point which makes a outstanding "shooter" like you, like chromasia.

Absolutely awesome shot Dave - wonderful post-processing. Love it <3

I finally had a chance to go back to the original. Quite a difference. Did you add grain to the sand? Did you do alot more than curves and tonal changes?

WOW...great work...how did u manage to turn the original image to this wonderful :)

Excellent shot and fantastic transformation from the original. I can not wait to see the other two images from this set. Seeing all that sand, does it make you miss the sandy beaches in the UK?

Awesome composition, depth, detail and color! Great work!!!******

Brilliant comp and colours.

I like the composition, but the post processing is fantastic!

Now THAT I like.

I'm really speachless David...this one is PERFECT!!!

Lovely, delightful tones and colors. Lights and shadows seem to be exactly on the right key (or at least my eyes are happy!)

please pay attention the true name is Persian Gulf not gulf, thanx.

David, this is image is so live as if you were looking through a window!

Wonderful image! I like everything about it!

Instantly a shot that meets the eye with such focus and interest. I've seen the video's of the trucks that make these tracks, Trying to defeat the sand-hill and you have captured a tranquil side to these crazy events!

Such detail in the foreground, yet smooth silk towards the background.

Simply Stunning!

That's a seriously cool shot. Great composition with the tracks leading to the dune, really interesting textures, nice light, excellent clouds, lovely contrast between the blue and the sand. Outstanding.

Beautiful photograph and wonderful work David.

I am going to review your Landscapes tutorial again.

I hope you and your family are doing well!

holy mother! You are killing me with this ! Man this is superb.

Wonderful enrichment of the original image you achieved here with your processing. Love the result you got with the sky ... beautiful. Simone who commented above, alerted me on Facebook about this post - thanks Simone. Certainly an image to be admired, indeed.

Hi Dave, sorry I missed you at GPP. I think this shot has received the most comments ever and deservingly so. Love how you took the one thing everyone tries to avoid in their desert shot and turned it into the subject and made use of our very rare clouds to create a beautiful 3D image. My favorite shot of the desert ever...

Well done David. Capturing the tire tracks from a lower viewpoint gives good composition.

Post processing is excellent. Did you use make contrast adjustments using masked curves? What tutorials of yours would be a good reference on how you achieved the end result of this image?

Good god, that's fantastic. Love the lighting on the dune.

Thanks everyone :)

Kevin: the blue is pulled from the original, all I did was add a couple of masked curves.

April: the final image was sharpened, which really brought out the grains in the sand.

Chris: yes, sometimes it would be good to take a walk along the beach in Blackpool. Most of the time though I'm happy to be in Bulgaria or, in this instance, the desert near Dubai :)

Kevin: yes, thanks, the family are good :)

Al: the tutorials that would be most relevant are Landscapes: creating dramatic images and Masking: part one (particularly the section on repairing a mask).

What a dramatic sky. Wounderful image...

Magnificent! One of my all time favourites! =D

Oh My! That's Nice.

Marvelous enhancing!! Absolutely wonderful image! Love it! Very much!

Absolutely amazing. I have followed your blog for quite some time and this is a particularly stunning shot. Thanks for brightening my day !

stunning!

David,
How would you respond to someone telling you that this picture is a totally different picture from the one you started from, and that it is more or less a photomontage (hence, a untrue/a lie).
I've used all my best arguments to contradict that point of view but still, i'm curious. What arguments would you use?
I'm well aware that these discussions are as old as photography but they are even more important today, software becoming more and more accessible.

Catalin: generally, there are two ways I answer that question.

First: no photograph is ever the truth, at least not the whole truth: the photographer frames the image (including some elements while excluding others), selects the focal length of lens to use (thereby altering the perspective), sets the exposure, and so on. As such, a photograph is as much about interpretation as it is about (literal) facts.

If you accept that point - that producing an image is an interpretative act - then there's a further complication; i.e. what do you take to be the baseline reality that you're interpreting? And I think there are two answers to that question: the reality of the actual scene, and the reality of your perception of that scene. If you take the former as the benchmark to aim for then clearly my image is a long way from that particular truth, though the original scene was quite a bit more interesting than the out-of-the-camera shot. Unfortunately though, the original looks like a pile of sand on a rather dull, flat day - which is true with respect to the reality of the scene, but false with respect to my perception of it. I was in the desert, one of the most inhospitable places on earth, and it felt a lot more exciting than it looked.

As such, my final image is closer to the experience of being there than it is to the visual truth of the scene, but for me that's what photography is all about - offering a visually compelling interpretation of a scene.

The second way I answer the question is "so what?" ;-)

Re: Catalin's question: there's no right or wrong in art, just different interpretations using different mediums, which the viewer can either like or dislike. It's their prerogative.

I happen to like this image - photoshop 'n' all.

Frankly an absolutely beautiful shot. I love this deep colours and tracks on the desert floor.

The texture... I'm so drawn to it! Wow!

that one really rocks !

I'm often surprised how some will accept what the camera produces, with it's limited ability to capture a scene the way it truely was to have experienced it, as the "truth". I have a feeling that the processed imaged is much closer to what it was like to have actually been standing there, then the off-camera image has documented for us. This is another perfect example of that.
Just a fantasic image David! Thanks for sharing it.

splendide

Striking image with a wide choice of colors.

Love this image. The road to heaven.Looks like you could keep going up, up and up.