Red and White Mtn - Upper McGee Creek Canyon

[SSSdave]

A bit of fun this evening. Last night my Adobe Photoshop CS5 box came in and I loaded the software onto my Hp Vista 64b system (bought the HP a couple years ago). Then loaded my old Epson Perfection Plus 2450 scanner software but that would not scan. Driver problems!!! It had been connected to my old Dell Dimension that also has Photoshop 6.0 which cannot be used to upgrade to the CS vesions. Found out Epson never upgraded their scanner Twain driver for Vista or Windows 7 (that sukks, thanks Epson!). So tonight downloaded Vuescan that has the only driver. But had to shell out $80 .



So my first scan with Vuescan was this 4x5 Provia transparency I captured with my 300mm Nikor about 7:30am on August 15 from a spot I climbed up to 3.3 miles from the peak. I'd backpacked up that canyon a couple times before going back to 1985. Before the trip I had figured out on the topo about where I needed to climb on the canyon wall to for an optimal view of upper McGee Creek Canyon towards Red and White Mountain then verified that with Google Earth. Once in the general area, the task was to find a spot where pines were not blocking the view and that was not so easy. Ended up hanging off a cliff haha. We were up there 5 days 4 nights with our first night near swampy Grassy Lake. There are so many brook trout in Grassy that its a fish every cast...but guess what?

The Vuescan was a crude 1200ppi scan making for a 5500 pixel wide image with downsized full frame Image above to 10% pixels. To really do this right I'd need to send it in for a drum scan at $80 and they'd scan at about 2400ppi with much better resolution. Still the 1200ppi scan has lots of detail. I edited it using CS5 and was happy Adobe hasn't changed tool functionality much so I had no issues.

Next below is a crop of the full image downsized to 40% showing Hopkins Pass saddle at left and class 3 Gunsight Notch center. Notice how a mid tele view would likely be nice of the notch area just a bit after sunrise from the right end of the closer ridge mid frame.



This is a crop of the full image downsized to 40% showing the colorful Paleozoic geology of Red and White Mountain at 12816 feet.



This is a crop of the full image downsized to 40% showing the upper bench areas about and below Big McGee Lake that is not actually in view since it is down in a hole below the big snowfield frame top. To actually view the lake, I would have had to climb up about another 1000 feet on the canyon wall which would have made the canyon view less appealing.



Finally is a crop of the full image downsized to 75% showing the area my bro Joe and I camped at on nights 2 and 3. We were camped in a shady mountain hemlock grove where the red dot is frame right. So a cliff was just a few feet away. Most trees in the canyon are lodgepole pines with whitebark pines up on the canyon walls and higher benches. Several snowbanks for water and three shallow ponds nearby made taking our requisite afternoon dip pleasant. Looked like no one had camped thereabouts for a long time and no one ever wandered about in our zone. Predictably there were several groups a half mile up the canyon near Big McGee Lake each day. On the left edge the arrow does show a reflection in a small narrow lake in the creek channel. Below that are some whitewater cascades, then the creek disappears quite a distance beneath talus where the ravine narrows.



We had a good trip. Lots of squeets in places but did not really bother me that much as we were in full battle gear and I had a fat bottle of Jungle Juice.

[fishmonger]

So tonight downloaded Vuescan that has the only driver. But had to shell out $80 .

Vuescan was one of the best software purchases I ever made. It totally transformed my scanner. You won't be disappointed. Nothing else comes close, even if you just bought it for the driver support, you did get the best.

[Carne_DelMuerto]

Wow, from PS 6 to CS5? That's quite the leap. I imagine it's like a whole different program.

[SSSdave]

Wow, from PS 6 to CS5? That's quite the leap. I imagine it's like a whole different program.

Yes PS 6.0 was released in 2000 and CS5 in 2010. I originally bought 3.0 in mid 90s to work with Kodak Pro PhotoCD's of my 35mm slide work. Studied a 1000+ page Photoshop course book over several months to learn it well. Most of the early CS releases didn't interest me because most new functions targeted all the vast numbers new DSLR users and there was much evolving yearly.

Although there are a fair amount of functions I've not yet used, and some tools have changed some, enough is the same that I can quickly get work done. A more confusing application I use is Gimp that is also on my HP and on my work desktop. That is much more tedious to learn and use, especially the copy and pasting layer functions. But that is freeware so one cannot complain. Once one knows how to use it, one can download and run it from anywhere.

[SSSdave]

Another one of my McGee Creek trip images I just scanned this Saturday morning. We had excellent high clouds during the 5 day trip that complemented this image nicely which would otherwise have been an unbalanced frame. I used geometries in the foreground granite rib to work something usable, setup the view camera, then waited about 15 minutes for the best clouds. Some day will send it out for a drum scan and expect it will make a fascinating 30x38 inch Lightjet print of a type of Sierra geology not many are familiar with.



The above is a 4x5 Provia 100F transparency exposed about 8:30am Sunday August 19 showing fascinating Paleozoic areas of McGee Creek canyon. Much like views in nearby Convict Creek canyon that were used as an other worldly backdrop in Star Trek Insurrection. Again a crude 1200 ppi Vuescan scan with my Epson 2450 downsized for this tiny web pic to 10% pixels.



The above is a crop from the full frame image downsized to 50% pixels. A gray knob with joint cracks crumbling into rectangular talus blocks with interesting headwall patterns above. My next trip into the canyon is likely to include some rambling about thar.



The above is a crop from the full frame image downsized to 50% pixels of the granite foreground area. Interesting darker granite inclusions with erosion rates different than the main rock body causes knobs to form. I added some tilt to bring it into sharper focus with lichen, a yellow sunflower family species upper left, and aster in the lower right.