Catch a falling star...

timor · Aug 13, 2012

Now it sounds alright.
Look, let's finish this. I have some questions as I am always suspicious of heavy PS manipulations (of which digital photography is famous), as at some point the pic stops to be a digital photograph. Your picture has for me some issues, signs of overcooking giving it, in my eyes, unnatural, fantastic look. Well, everyone is entitled to have own fun. Good luck to you with catching shooting stars.

RxForB3 · Aug 13, 2012

See, that's one of my biggest problems right now. I just don't seem to have a knack for processing. If I sent you the RAW file, would you be willing to give it a shot? I don't know for sure if my processing problems stem from not knowing what I'm doing, or from not having a quality photo to begin with!

Frequency · Aug 13, 2012

I liked it.... I post a personal intepretation here....please bear with me for this

Regards

timor · Aug 13, 2012

RxForB3 said:
I just don't seem to have a knack for processing. If I sent you the RAW file...

Good one !

RxForB3 · Aug 13, 2012

Sorry? Is that not something one is suppose to ask?

RxForB3 · Aug 13, 2012

Here is a new rendition taking into consideration the suggestions made. I think I like the crop because it makes the mountain feel closer now that's it's not dominated by the slope on the right. Unfortunately it meant cropping off some of the lake, but I think it was an acceptable loss. The processing this time was done entirely in Lightroom and consisted of very simple noise reduction, lowering the highlights (quite a bit), boosting shadows quite a bit, and little boosts on the exposure, clarity, saturation, and vibrance. I think it does look more natural when viewed with a black background (the lightbox or whatever flickr calls it), but a bit dark when viewed with in a white setting as on here.

Catch a falling star (crop and reedit) by RxForB3, on Flickr

RxForB3 · Aug 13, 2012

Frequency, thank you for your edit. A bit too purple for my tastes, but nice

Ballistics · Aug 13, 2012

RxForB3 said:
Sorry? Is that not something one is suppose to ask?

I don't think English is timor's first langauge. I also don't think that timor has ever shot stars at a long exposure.
I happen to like both of your edits.

RxForB3 · Aug 13, 2012

Thank you, Ballistics. And timor, I certainly don't mean to offend. I appreciate you taking the time to give your suggestions and agree with your opinion that it did appear a little unrealistic and overprocessed.

timor · Aug 13, 2012

Ballistics said:
RxForB3 said:

Sorry? Is that not something one is suppose to ask?

Click to expand...

I don't think English is timor's first langauge. I also don't think that timor has ever shot stars at a long exposure.

That's right, English is not my first language and that's right, never shot any good picture of stars. I tried, but not much and on view camera on b&w film. I don't even shoot much digitally. So I am no expert on digital editing, but 35 years of active interest in photography put me through viewing many pictures, many books and many discussions also about the final impact of a photograph. All I said was that this photograph strikes me as unreal, artificial. (Not as bad as this image:Earth's giant moon - The art of black and white photography and pictures.) Take it or leave it, here is a whole group of people, who say otherwise. Maybe I don't know, don't understand the challenges of shooting stars at a long exposures, but is your goal to show your work to people who know only ?

O, no no, I didn't feel offended at any time, I was rather afraid of the opposite. I was laughing as I imagined myself editing your RAW file. THAT would be fun !