Buckeye, Arizona.

On a cool January day, we enjoyed the usual Arizona sunshine, but for the last couple of days, intermittent rain showers rolled through the Phoenix metro. On the road back from a trip to Skyline Park, I noticed Estrella Mountain in the distance. With the normal level of air quality in the metro, there is usually a haze obscuring a clear view of the mountain from here. The rains, however, have washed the air, and the namesake of the Estrella Mountains was unusually clear in the distance.

About the photo: Captured with my Samsung S20U in 108 MP mode, the image was a lot wider and taller than providing just a view of the mountain. With a 12,000×9,000 pixel image, I was able to crop to include only the mountain and its immediate foreground. Even so, I still had a 5700×3200 pixel image to process.

I used my usual tools in Adobe Lightroom and Luminar AI to finish the work, then reduced the image to 2048 pixels on the long side, the size I use for posting panoramic images on the blog. As usual, if your browser supports the function, you can click on the image to enlarge it.

John Steiner