Evening Glow

[dje]

I recently posted a night shot of the Brisbane skyline. To get that shot, I set up the camera and tripod just after sunset and took a shot about every five minutes as the sky got darker until the conditions were just right (about 30mins after sunset). It was only yesterday that I processed one of the earlier shots which has a totally different feel to it and, I think, a nice "glow". I'd be happy to hear what you think of it.

Cheers Dave

[FrankMi]

Hi Dave! The exposure looks about right for the conditions but the city buildings and foliage look more vibrant that I would expect for the scene. Some of the unexpected colour may be coming from Chromatic Aberration, if you look closely at the windows of the building on the far left, as an example.

Did you tonemap the image, perhaps?

[dje]

Hi Dave! The exposure looks about right for the conditions but the city buildings and foliage look more vibrant that I would expect for the scene. Some of the unexpected colour may be coming from Chromatic Aberration, if you look closely at the windows of the building on the far left, as an example.

Did you tonemap the image, perhaps?

Frank I meant to include a couple of pp details but forgot. No tone mapping but I "cooled" the shot using the WB setting and bumped up the colour saturation a bit because the image initially looked a bit flat.

There could be some CA there on the left. Also even though the sun had set, there was a fair bit of light in the sky to the left hand side of the image and I think this was reflecting off the glass clad buildings.

Cheers Dave

[Shadowman]

Looks good.

[dje]

Thanks John

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Dave,

Nice shot - have you considered cropping 20% off the top edge, try it in the browser; click for the bigger size in Lytebox, then scroll it up - I think I prefer it with a bit more emphasis onthe scene, because although there is sky glow, it isn't in that featureless top bit.

Definitely some CA going on the there I'm afraid, the clincher is that if you compare left and right edges of shot - on the left hand side of shot the buildings (against the sky or with large brightness edge) have a cyan (pale green) 'border' on their left and on the right hand side the cyan (pale green) border on the right.

Various programmes have means of correcting this, some automatic, some manual, but if none of those are available to you, you can always just zoom right in (300%) and use an appropriately sized desaturate sponge tool (say 1 or 2 px) to remove the offending coloured borders, it needn't take too long, as you don't need to be 'pixel perfectly' aligned, as long as there are no satruated colours in the buildings or sky.

In this case it is red and cyan, other times (e.g. with a different lens, or same lens at a different focal length) it can be any two complementary colours; green/magenta or blue/yellow.

Here's a snip from the right hand side at about 300% with the bit at the shoulder level desaturated, before and after.



Unfortunately, I am doing this after your sharpening and conversion to jpg, both of which will make the CA, and my attempted clean up, look worse. If corrected before downsizing, sharpening and jpg, the result should be much better.

I hope you don't mind me making an example of your picture, but it has been instructive, even to me - my first attempt 'went too far'; I took out all the CA cyan and magenta, but ended up with a monochrome building (it didn't look good)

With benefit of experience, on this picture, I think an automatic, or a proper manual CA removal method is the better way to go, it would take too long to do as I describe.

Cheers,

[dje]

Thanks for your comments Dave. I've tried your crop suggestion and decided I preferred it. The new new crop is now displayed above. I think it gives a bit more depth to the shot and makes it more of a panoramic view.

It was you who alerted me to this CA issue on a previous image, also taken in low light conditions. I am using a Sigma 17-70mm HSM lens which in general I am happy with. But this may be one weakness - or is it common amongst anything but the most expensive lenses ?

I did investigate automatic correction last time but I didn't seem to have any software to do it. I will try some manual work as you suggest. Last time I had some success by selecting an area and then using the spot healing brush.

Cheers Dave

[dje]

An update for Dave Humphries.

The above image has now been replaced with one which has had CA correction applied using the PTLens plug-in for PS.

Dave

[Dave Humphries]

An update for Dave Humphries.

The above image has now been replaced with one which has had CA correction applied using the PTLens plug-in for PS.

Dave

Thanks Dave.

Great result

I did a bit of research on PTLens and it looks easier to use and (if you believe the hype) more accurate than PS corrections, worth a free try.

I'm sure I can find $25, after the 10 image trial is over, if it is as good as it looks.

Cheers,

[FrankMi]

An update for Dave Humphries.

The above image has now been replaced with one which has had CA correction applied using the PTLens plug-in for PS.

Dave

Funny how such a subtle change can make such a difference in the look of an image. Nice result!

[dje]

Yes Dave, I wont buy it until my 10 free shots have been used but I think it's highly likely that I'll fork out the $25 after that.

Frank you have to enlarge a fair bt to see the difference on the detail but overall I think it does clean up the image even at normal viewing size.

Thanks to both of you for prodding me on this issue.

Cheers Dave