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Archive 2014 · Sproat Lake Stars

  
 
VanIsle
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Sproat Lake Stars


I thought I would share another one from Tuesday night, since the first one I shared went over so well (over 100 views and no comments)

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Jun 05, 2014 at 10:06 AM
dalongfellow
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Sproat Lake Stars


Looks very good. I like the bit of light on the lake all the way across the shot--it really adds something. Plus, the separation between the two hills works very well. Don't know if it's light pollution, but the peachy tones are a nice complement to the blues in the night sky. Well done.

Dave



Jun 05, 2014 at 10:16 AM
dgdg
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Sproat Lake Stars


this is a nice photo.
I'd comment on a couple things perhaps. The background sky is too bright. I'd try to capture some detail in the mountains since it is mostly a silhouette. Maybe you have another exposure you can blend. With the upsloping hill on the right, it feels too tight and wanting a landscape orientation.

David



Jun 05, 2014 at 10:56 AM
VanIsle
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Sproat Lake Stars


Dave - thanks for taking the time to comment. It is indeed light pollution, but it did add some nice color to the clouds that were otherwise cramping my shot

David - I was feeling the same thing, that the silhouette on the right was crowding things a little. I do have some other compositions to work on, including landscape, although this orientation was allowing more of the milky way into the shot. I struggle processing these shots (I am new to this) to keep the sky dark enough without losing the details and layering in the mountains. I guess I have to just man up and learn some blending techniques with multiple images. PS scares me a bit

Edited to add - if anyone has a good book suggestion for using CS6 to blend images, I am all for it. Something I need to learn.



Jun 05, 2014 at 11:07 AM
JimFox
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Sproat Lake Stars


dgdg wrote:
this is a nice photo.
I'd comment on a couple things perhaps. The background sky is too bright. I'd try to capture some detail in the mountains since it is mostly a silhouette. Maybe you have another exposure you can blend. With the upsloping hill on the right, it feels too tight and wanting a landscape orientation.

David


Hey Jeremy,

David usually has some good suggestions, but in this case I would have to disagree. I like what you came up with here. Although we are now used to being able to get shadow detail with the great DR of blending or in camera that doesn't mean we always should. What often makes a great B&W work is the contrast between light and dark, and that same contrast can be effective in color shots too. Plus the darker hills really helps to convey the feeling of it being a night shot.

If this was mine, I would not change a thing, I think you really nailed a sweet shot. The clouds that are offering a window to the Milky Way is a really aspect to this shot.

Jim



Jun 05, 2014 at 11:15 AM
stanparker
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Sproat Lake Stars


I like it as is. There may be changes that would make nice photos, too, but that doesn't detract from this one. Well done.


Jun 05, 2014 at 12:08 PM
Jeffrey
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Sproat Lake Stars


I like this image. But, like the storm of night sky images seen here lately, the sky is too bright for me. Fun to look at but not natural looking.


Jun 05, 2014 at 01:03 PM
dgdg
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Sproat Lake Stars


JimFox wrote:
David usually has some good suggestions, but in this case I would have to disagree. I like what you came up with here. Although we are now used to being able to get shadow detail with the great DR of blending or in camera that doesn't mean we always should. What often makes a great B&W work is the contrast between light and dark, and that same contrast can be effective in color shots too. Plus the darker hills really helps to convey the feeling of it being a night shot.

If this was mine, I would not change a thing,
...Show more

Jim certainly has a keen eye and always provides encouraging critiques where needed. I haven't found a time when I didn't, usually tacitly, agree with him in the end. He has taught me a great deal.

Regarding your 'blend' question. Well that's the trick isn't it.
If you have a single shot in PS, select the land portion, refine selection, then choose to make a another layer with mask. Now you can edit your sky separately from the foreground. If your initial selection didn't catch everything perfectly, you can always edit your mask a bit. This type of blend is not too hard since you are treating it like two separate portions (land and sky). Not affecting the clouds requires a little more work and skill (I'm not claiming I have it). Often a luminance/image mask works well to protect things after editing the mask with curves, selecting a color range, or try making two images combining them with blend-if. There seems to be more than one way to do most things in PS, but some are easier than others depending on the image and goals.

David



Jun 05, 2014 at 01:12 PM
JimFox
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Sproat Lake Stars


To add to David's comments here. I will mention that with my star shots, I always use a layer mask to adjust the sky/stars separately from the ground layer. Not just for brightness/contrast issues, but often more importantly for WB issues between the sky and ground. And if you are selecting the clouds separate from the sky as David is alluding to, I would use the Color Range tool to select the clouds as they do have a distinct color tone. But it also would be super simple to draw with the lasso around the clouds and feather them about 50pix. It might take a minute to lasso them all, but they are distinct enough to make the selection pretty easy.

Jim



Jun 05, 2014 at 09:05 PM





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