Hood of Fire

RxForB3 · Jun 5, 2013

Here's the edit. Honestly, I'm not at all sure that I like the edit.

ryanwaff · Jun 5, 2013

Ive always been envious of people that can pull shots like this off. I have tried many times but to no avail.

You mentioned you werent too sure about the post done on this image. I personally feel that the image is lacking a little bit of contrast. So I gave it a quick bash a quick edit:

Looking at it here, I might have been slightly enthusiastic in my rendition. Nevertheless, here is my process:
Working in sRGB colour space.

1. Apply a slight unsharp mask

Amount: 58%,
Radius: 1.2px, and
threshold: 0

2. Applied a brightness/contrast adjustment with setting:

Brightness: +2 and
contrast: +22

3. Applied a Curves adjustment with a rather aggressive 'S' curve pulling the shadows down and increasing the highlights.

4. Did local burn adjustments to the log area to darken it slightly and remove the purple 'haze' that was present.

5. Opened reduced noise with settings:

Luminance: 13,
Detail: 71,
Contrast: 15,
Colour: 24 and
Detail: 50

6. Dodged some areas on the milky way to make it pop a bit more.

Ended up getting a bit more carried away than I intended haha, but included all the steps I took. And again I just want to reiterate how much I love this shot, regardless of edit

manyvan2000 · Jun 5, 2013

RxForB3 said:
Here's the edit. Honestly, I'm not at all sure that I like the edit.

Hood of Fire Crop by RxForB3, on Flickr

I like the original better. Lucky you, the sky in my area is almost always blank - a moon and a handful of stars at the most

.

PropilotBW · Jun 5, 2013

That is an awesome night shot.

RxForB3 · Jun 7, 2013

Ryanwaff, thanks for the suggestions. I haven't had time to try them myself, but I appreciate the detailed explanation of what you did. I like your results, and I should imagine it will be even better making those adjustments to the original RAW file as opposed to the jpeg you had to work from. I'll give it a shot as soon as I have more time!