Another moon

[lesno1]

[Shadowman]

Nice shot.

[James G]

Very nice capture, with great surface detail, Les. I usually increase the contrast of a full moon, since it tends to be washed out/flat compared to a earlier phases.

l

[lesno1]

Hello James hope you are ok long time no see , i find that if its a half or smaller moon i tend to get better pictures than the full and brighter moon

[Wavelength]

Great celestial pumpkin!!!

[James G]

Les, I've taken the liberty of tweaking your image abit. Basically I have reduced the highlights, increased the clarity and increased the blacks and shadow areas. Final tweak was then to brighten the image back to near the original luminosity.
What do you think?



James

[lesno1]

That is brilliant James thankyou for doing it i can hardly believe its the same image are you using photoshop ?

[James G]

Yes, but the same can be done in most applications, (Lightroom, GIMP, Elements, Affinity, etc)

I'm not really up on the camera manufacturers software but I would think there are options to do the same..

The real point is that your original capture was spot on. Essentially all the detail was present and no highlights were blown. So you can afford to be adventurous.

[lesno1]

Yes, but the same can be done in most applications, (Lightroom, GIMP, Elements, Affinity, etc)

I'm not really up on the camera manufacturers software but I would think there are options to do the same..

The real point is that your original capture was spot on. Essentially all the detail was present and no highlights were blown. So you can afford to be adventurous.

I use canon software and your right i dont like to play with the images too much but what you did has realy knocked me out James a lesson learned thanks again

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Nice shot!
I've found it pays to play. Just make a copy and have at it. You never know what lurks in there until you try.

[Tronhard]

Hi Les:

First of all an very nice shot and further development by James.

What equipment did you use for this shot?

[NorthernFocus]

Nicely captured detail. IMO the higher contrast edit does it more justice though perhaps slightly a bit over done. At any rate, well done.

[Manfred M]

I use canon software and your right i dont like to play with the images too much but what you did has realy knocked me out James a lesson learned thanks again

Unfortunately your camera does not understand the subject it is shooting, so it applies a standardized approach. That might be fine for an "average scene" (whatever that is???), but for something that is not quite so standard, the results are often rather mediocre and the photographer can definitely improve what the camera has captured in post-processing.

[James G]

Les, I know you live fairly near me. I'm in Marston Green. If it helps I can put together a 'detailed' description of my workflow, or if you want, why not pop around and I'll walk you through a 'practical' session.


James

[lesno1]

Hi im using a Canon 700d with a 70-300 is lens

[lesno1]

Thanks again James im not very mobile at present (ligament damage to my knee) but i would be very grateful if you could send a description of your workflow

[ccphoto]

You say potato, I say Patato but I think James went a step past where the moon shows best and by this I mean how it looks to the eye in the sky, not how far we can process in PS...not that I haven't done the same :-)

[James G]

I'd agree with both Dan and Chris' comments... but in fairness I was trying to suggest that Les' original image could take a bit more processing.

If it had been mine, and I wished to produce an image more in sympathy with the reality of the viewing conditions, I would have generated something more like Chris's render.

However, if it had been mine, it is much more likely I would have rendered the image to facilitate a rather nerdy interest of mine, when it comes to identifying lunar features.
I have two lunar atlas' The Hatfield Lunar Atlas (Anthony Charles Cook), and recently, Moon Atlas for Visual Observation (Josef Kozar).

I quite enjoy identifying Craters, Hills, Valleys etc and the finer/smaller the detail I can pinpoint the more the satisfaction.

So particularly with the full moon, I process to emphasise as many features as possible.

This rendering of my own capture of the recent 'super moon' is posted below:-



I'd say my rework of Les's image was a bit more restrained..... for me... that is

[ccphoto]

I'd agree with both Dan and Chris' comments... but in fairness I was trying to suggest that Les' original image could take a bit more processing.

If it had been mine, and I wished to produce an image more in sympathy with the reality of the viewing conditions, I would have generated something more like Chris's render.

However, if it had been mine, it is much more likely I would have rendered the image to facilitate a rather nerdy interest of mine, when it comes to identifying lunar features.
I have two lunar atlas' The Hatfield Lunar Atlas (Anthony Charles Cook), and recently, Moon Atlas for Visual Observation (Josef Kozar).

I quite enjoy identifying Craters, Hills, Valleys etc and the finer/smaller the detail I can pinpoint the more the satisfaction.

So particularly with the full moon, I process to emphasise as many features as possible.

This rendering of my own capture of the recent 'super moon' is posted below:-



I'd say my rework of Les's image was a bit more restrained..... for me... that is

Indeed...and I was not implying your edit was over the top, more so that I like processing closer to "real" and that too is up for personal interpretation... To get perfect detail requires a stellar super tele prime which I no can afford. Cheers!

[James G]

Les,
Hope this is helpful as a description of my general processing workflow.
I use Adobe Camera Raw to adjust/preprocess images before using Photoshop for ‘final’ post processing.
The key point being that all the changes applied in ACR are non destructive and can be changed removed etc, without potential damage to the initial capture.

I carry out initial adjustments in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) as follows:-

• I go to the Camera Calibration tab RHS Tabs) and usually select Camera Faithful from the profile options available. (I suggest you try each one and see which looks best for your image.)

• I do not adjust the tint or hue on this tab.

I then go to the Lens Correction Tab.

• Under ‘Profile’ I first select the lens from the lens profile list. If there is any obvious correction needed for Chromatic Aberration in the image, I switch to the manual tab and correct.

Next I go to the Basic tab which is where the ‘heavy’ adjustments are made.

• I suggest you set the Black/ White alerts for ‘blown’ highlights and lowlights. (Click/toggle the two little boxes at each side of the histogram at the top. Blown whites will be flagged in red and Blacks in Blue.)

• At this point I usually set the white balance (dropper tool 3^rd from left on top line). I’m looking for any neutral gray area to click on. It often needs a bit of trial and error to find a good balance. And I do ‘check’ the white balance continuously as I make further adjustments.

I use the sliders for basic adjustments in pairs. In general, the advice is to start at the top and work down the sliders, so I may be being a bit controversial . I find though that there is a correlation in the way the pairs work.
Slider Pairs are as follows:-

• · Clarity and Exposure or Clarity and Black. (I quite often like getting the blacks sorted first, again a personal foible and not a hard and fast rule)
• · Highlights and Whites
• · Exposure & Whites
• · Blacks & shadows

For reasons which I can’t really justify other than it’s something that I am comfortable with. I tend to adjust Clarity and Exposure first. I look to get the overall brightness I want for the image.

• I then move on to Blacks and Shadows in order to adjust the overall balance of light/dark in the image.

• Next I work on Highlights and Whites, with a view to balancing contrast across the image to a level that seems right.I find that as I make changes to Highlight/White it is worth going back to Exposure or Blacks and ‘fine tune’.

• I’ve also noticed that I rarely adjust the contrast if I’ve used the Exposure/Clarity approach.

• Finally I return to White balance, and review immediately after basic exposure adjustment.

Once I’m satisfied with the Basic Tab adjustments I move on to the Detail Tab (on the RHS Tabs))

• · I set the zoom level at the bottom left to 100% and then check the image to see how much noise there is. If needed I adjust the luminance slider to reduce to an acceptable level (go back to full screen view to check that removing noise is not softening the image in a damaging fashion.

• · I sometimes, but not always, apply sharpening to the image using the sliders above. Once again checking between the 100% view and the full screen view is needed.
• · When sharpening though, I always use the masking slider, while holding the Alt key on the keyboard, to adjust the sharpening to the edge areas of the image only. (Essentially this limits sharpening to edges rather than flat areas of the image which don’t need it and potentially introducing unwanted artefacts.) If you try this you will understand better what I’m advising.

• Finally, I take a look at the Tone Curve tab, between the Basic tab and the Detail tab.This simply allows some final adjustment of the balance between Highlights and Whites and Darks and Shadows .I use it as only after I have made adjustments on the Basic tab, and tend to think of it as ‘tidying up’ what has already been achieved.

Clicking on DONE (Bottom right, saves these changes to an xml sidecar file, and secures them so that they are applied when you reopen the file later.

The OPEN Image button along side, does the same, but then opens the image in Photoshop for further processing.

In summary, when I move the image into Photoshop I apply final changes to adjust it for printing, web presentation, etc
Usually I apply:-

1. Masks/Selections of areas of the image I specifically want to a adjust using additional:-

• · Layers/Curves layer
• · Layers to sharpen or blur areas (eg.. I usually soften sky /cloud since sharpening is not usually sensible)
• · Hue & Saturation

OK That’s it... and I hope it’s not too confusing J
When you have had time to assimilate it let me know, and I’ll expand a bit on the Photoshop side of things.


C&C welcome