Sky Cream with a Little Moon on Top, Please

--Lannie

Hi Lannie,

I like both images of the clouds and moon that you have posted.

Your exposure was very good as it captured the faithful colors that I have often witnessed under similar atmospheric conditions present.

Best Regards,  Mike

Thanks, Mike.  I certainly tried to get the colors back to almost natural after using curves in post processing. 

--Lannie

A look at the original indicates just how much I failed to do so!  I didn't mind the purplish cast in the clouds, but the sky was too green after using curves, and so I applied some magenta to get it back to neutral.  I still cannot manage color correction very well.

--Lannie

Hi Lannie,

I took your original into Photoshop and used  "Auto Tone" , followed by a slight range adjustment to get more of the Lunar Maria to show. I did not remove the black element , as it was part of your original (bird ?)

Best Regards,  Mike

Thank you so much, Mike.  You have spent an ENORMOUS amount of time today helping me with my pictures.  I do like the results of your efforts to show the lunar maria (and had no idea that that was the plural of mare or "sea"), and I am sure that, when I finally get THE lunar photograph that I have been trying for for almost a year and half (in terms of my own desire--or is it obsession?--to get both earth and moon in the same exposure--not "shopped" in), your methods will help me to obtain both the result that I was hoping for without using Photoshop to fudge (i.e. importing another image from another exposure), an ethical judgment that I make advisedly, and I know a lot artistic types who do not care about how one gets the image--nor should there be an ethical quandary for them, since they are simply creating.

I find myself different from the true digital artists, however.  I do want the essential integrity of WHAT I SAW to be preserved, but I am not such a strict documentarian that I subscribe to the prevailing journalistic code that allows no change in the image.  I have no compunction, that is, with shopping out a piece of white paper or other garbage by the side of the road, etc.  In the same way, no, we do not see the lunar maria as clearly as you show them, but your method does allow us to show what the eye CAN see--but what, as you well know, the camera cannot.  The moon almost always seems too bright in photos, since it is reflecting direct sunlight, and so invariably much of the contrast is lost or blown out entirely. The eye makes the adjustment that the camera cannot, as you well know--and thus the perennial loss of contrast.

You seem, that is, to be able to consistently come up with the best technological mix and artistic judgment to allow you to show what you saw--only better, and with no violation of artistic or scientific integrity.  (You and I are not journalists, after all, and we do not have to worry that the "newspaper" will throw out our submission if it turns out that we have used Photoshop.)

My problem is that at present i do not have that much skill with Photoshop.  I started with it in 2003 by buying PS 7 "new" on eBay for a bit over $200--which turned out with my being sent PS 6 with an upgrade to PS 7.  I was sure that I had been snookered at first, but, no, neither had been opened or registered, and so I got started with the full-blown program without having to lay out $600 or so.  Then I upgraded to CS 2 (PS 9) and then CS 4 (PS 11), each time on the basis of one or two major technological advances that I knew that I could not get anywhere else at the time, such as perspective correction, healing brush, etc.  I still do not know how to use layers, have never imported something from another exposure, etc., both of which could be very valuable for a particular purpose--but so far not mine.

Now, with Adobe's warning that they will not allow us to jump a generation without having to pay the full amount to start all over, I can no longer go the route I have gone of jumping a generation to save money--and so I caved in and got PS 5, and about the same time I also got Lightroom 4, neither of which I have loaded just yet.

I keep thinking that I will actually read and work through the Scott Kelby books that I have bought, but the reality is that I keep  muddling through and learning one little thing here and there, typically more or less as I need them--not a very systematic approach.

What you have taught me today on both pictures was invaluable--you are a true friend indeed.  I do hope that someday I can send you or link you to a lunar photo that is worth sharing, something that I can be proud of, and something that you will have been a contributor to as well. 

You are truly a valued Photo.net "colleague," Mike, you and Jamie Kraft, both of you who are scientists whose knowledge is these areas continues to far outstrip my own. Bob Atkins' own skill in lunar photography is worthy of note here, as is William Kahn's--and I am talking here about persons such as yourself who are not indifferent to the esthetic dimension.

Thanks again, my friend.

--Lannie