I know this is a disaster but...

[Photographiend]

It was my first time trying to get the star points by narrowing the aperture as much as possible.

I am open to feedback as to how to improve this. I do have limited equipment and this was actually quite frustrating because I had to stand on a chair and shine a flashlight on the angel (LED hence the excessive blueness) to get it to show up in the picture at all. I found that each time I would get myself positioned properly the camera would go into sleep mode and my remote would cease to work... which made for a lot of back and forth very carefully trying not to knock my precariously perched camera equip down (camera on tripod balanced on two dining chairs)... or injure myself in the process (which is why I eventually started standing on a chair instead of trying to balance on the arm of the couch... of course I actually had to nearly fall off the couch and into the tree before I had this stroke of genius)... *facepalm* When am I going to learn I am too old to be risking my life trying to get creative with stuff?

 

[The_Traveler]

?

 

[Photographiend]

Thanks Lew :mrgreen: I really like that. What did you do? Fill light? Contrast? And I see you straightened it a bit too.

 

[The_Traveler]

I moved the tree to another layer then brightened and denoised the background a bit.
The sharpened the tree using USM with large radius. look up local area contrast enhancement.

If you send me a link to a large one, I'll edit and return the PS file

 

[Derrel]

Good edit by The_Traveler! And a really nicely decorated tree too.

 

[robbins.photo]

Say, could I get a super huge printout out? I'd like to be able to just hang it in my window - would save me a whole ton of time. Lol

 

[minicoop1985]

Here's something I just learned about, actually. In the future, for other shots of that nature, you could try...

Star Filters

I've been thinking of getting one myself just to do something different.

BTW, Lew, nice edit.

 

[Photographiend]

Yeah... I bought one of those a while back unfortunately it was for a 35mm and doesn't fit my lens but I think I prefer the challenge of doing it without.

 

[minicoop1985]

Ironically, I just got one in a lot of camera stuff that showed up today from eBay. Personally, I like the effect. Kudos for wanting to be challenged, though.