Assignment 22: Edit this! - Congratulations William!

[Steve U]

Congrats William, nice effort.

[William]

Thanks everybody! Apparently there was virtually nothing in the votes to separate the entries so everyone deserves a pat on the back[*]


I would also like to thank everybody for welcoming me to this site. I usually don't get actively involved in internet communities, I'm one of those people that glide through anonymously, read the bits that interest me and move on. What got me interested in joining you guys' was how you all treated each other with great respect and share polite and fun conversation. You also share a wealth of information and diverse experience. I hope I can contribute similarly.


I'm not sure if anyone is interested in how I did my edit, but if you are then this is the basic outline:

• Opened the RAW image in Lightroom and exported it 3 times as a TIF (-2 stops EV, normal, +2 stops EV)
• Combined the images as one creating a HDR. I used Photomatix for this but Photoshop or even one of the free HDR programs would have worked.
• Opened the image in PS and applied a noise filter and sharpened the image as much as I could without making it look obvious. Sized the image for web.
• Back to Lightroom and played with the settings until I got a nice contrasty BW. This is where the sky got darkened (but there were no local adjustments, it was all global).
• Saved - Done!

The <span style="text-decoration: line-through;"]colour image oops! sorry'color' (I'm in Australia), was done with the Topaz Clean plugin for PS and LR.


Irecieved a few comments about the stars, this was easy and took literally about 5-10 minutes. I added a layer in Photoshop and with a tiny white brush set to about 15% opacityI clicked in some dots. Single clicks for dim ones and multiple clicks for bright ones. A white blob for the comet and the street lights were just a larger brush. Tip: if you click on a point and Shift-Click on another point, you'll make a straight line - I used this technique for the light casts.


Good luck everybody for the next assignment!

[ddt0725]

Congrats, William!! You did a fantastic job on this!


Denise

[bob williams]

Congrats William---Great work