Before

http://i10.tinypic.com/526a5jo.jpg

After

http://i18.tinypic.com/67zg9sn.jpg

Nice job bringing the colors back. Looks good.

the one problem i see is you retouched an area above the date that didn't need to changed...

To my eye it's oversaturated and oversharpened, and there's a big round clone print where the date used to be. This is a job for Lab, with some restraint.

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Nice picture to play with.

Brought up levels, cloned out the date, little bit of selective sharpening, upped the saturation a touch on reds and yellows.

Finally added a broad spotlight filter to enhance/alter the lighting a little.

Lurch, I agree, Ashley's it is a bit over sharpened, however, desert colors at times are surprisingly vivid, with a lot of variations on the reds. I think yours is a little too muted for the area.

The desert is one of my favorite places to go hiking and camping. Its colors can be very vibrant and saturated, especially during winter and spring. I always say as if someone put a contrast curve to the scenery and no one in the group has a clue of wth I'm talking about.
I took this pic and converted it to Lab mode and used curves...got rid of date stamp and converted it back to RGB.

Dave,
I think yours is a little too muted for the area.
I do have a tendency to understate things, so your observation could be accurate. The colors do match my memory of the large hunk of time I spent in my youth camping in and driving through the desert. Then again, that was a long time ago, and memories can fade . . .:grin:

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Have you ever been to the painted desert? It's so named because is looks more like an over saturated painting than the real thing. I was in awe, the first time I was there.:grin:

Have you ever been to the painted desert?

Yup, more than once. Spectacular place.

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:thumbsup: :hat:

Color adjust, Neat Image to remove noise, Nik Skylight filter to remove blue cast, Nik Brilliance and Warmth and finally selective sharpening with Nik Sharpener Pro.

I've never been to the painted desert but I did live in New Mexico for 3 years. Here is my offer; removed date with clone and healing brush then a simple bright/contrast brought up the colors as I remembered them. Just a tad of burn in for the edges of the mountains. Oh, and a lavender 10% over-layer. That 10% lavender blends a multitude of ills in color photos. Loved this one reminded me of days gone by.

used patch tool to remove date and time stamp
adjusted colors in lab mode
duplicated layer set blending to screen and masked out the landscape to lighten the sky reduced opacity to 72 percent

The first thing this pic needed, I figured, was something to occupy some of that foreground. A nice horsie, maybe, or a few head of cattle. A cowboy, an Indian, whatever. But since none of these was available I gave it a good stiff cropping instead (could have used more, even, but there wouldn't have been many pixels left).

Then it was just levels, curves, selective color, noise reduction, sharpening, d&b and a little more sharpening for good measure.

Just my imagination...

Michel B