But, where the magic fades, my appreciation for the work increases. Brilliant photos take time and skill, and I guess I'm becoming more comfortable with manipulating images to represent reality using some "little white lie" Photoshopping.
Now that the curtain has been pulled back, it seems less dishonest to kill the orange glow of the rural suburbs to more closely represent the sky how I perceive it in person. See below:
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| 25 sec at ISO 800 shows lots of orange glow straight from the camera |
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| Same image adjusted in Photoshop to match what I saw in person - is this cheating? |
Which of these is more authentic? The one that I didn't touch (but the light pollution junked up), or the one that looks more like what I really saw (but didn't have the ability to capture).
How did you achieve that effect ?
ReplyDeleteHi Chris, I removed a lot of the orange in Photoshop by adjusting the color balance. Specifically, I moved the yellow/blue slider more toward the blue end, and the red/cyan slider slightly toward cyan.
ReplyDeleteThanks alot man :)
ReplyDeleteUsing the white balance in "Tungsten" setting....helps to kick down the intrusive sky glow...and right at the start of the Astro imaging session. Nudging it in Post production brings our dark skies back.
ReplyDeleteI have been enjoying the results for quite sometime now - using a Canon Powershot S3 and now the Canon T5i.
Chicago Astronomer Joe
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Hey Joe, thanks for the comment! I got a T5i for Christmas and I still have yet to really put it through it's paces. Hoping for some nice nights this Spring - this was the worst Winter to experiment with motorized tracking (snow, numb fingers, tiny screws) ugh!
ReplyDelete