The moon

Would greatly appreciate C&C on this one, particularly on the post processing and editing aspects of the image. I have been trying my hand again at improving some images so would greatly appreciate any tips.

Didn't do much to this one except using curves levels contrast and sharpening. It was a balance between all the above and trying to keep the highlights to not overblow.

Desperately seeking to improve my crude photoshop skills

Thank you

That looks fine, very little to say about it really. It's a good clean shot of the moon that ticks all the boxes!

Not easy to do and you've done it well.

Thank you John, appreciate that. Leaves me with a huge grin

It's very good. Among the best I've seen posted here, and certainly better than mine

But I'm sure you already knew that, because doubtless you've already compared it with lots of moon shots that people have already posted.

So I'm not clear what you're asking here - there are lots of tutorials on how to use curves and sharpening techniques, and if there's one consistent theme amongst them all, it's that there's no 'one-size fits all' recipe that applies equally to all pictures, and it's often just a question of trying them all until it looks as good as it can - which is very subjective anyway.

It would be nice, from a learning point of view, to have a little more detail of what you actually did to achieve it - the exposure is available in the EXIF, but you haven't said which lens you used to achieve the recorded 300mm.

I've got the impression before that you're not always keen to divulge these details. Of course, that's entirely your choice, but not necessarily appropriate if you're looking for feedback on how to improve - since in order to know how to make something better, it helps to know how it was made in the first place.

If it's the DA* 300, then I'm not surprised it's so good - by all accounts it's an excellent lens, so it can really take advantage of all the pixels the K20D gives you.

In my limited experience, the better the photo, the less editing it needs to get it to look its best.

Yes Amin, very good a lot better than my efforts but I will try again next month.

Jack.

Thank you Chris
It was shot with the DA*300 and there isnt much about technique hee actually. Just followed some tips and advice from fellow members here, mirror lock up and sturdy tripod and just shot a few with different settings and got this one looking best

I have on occasions divulgued setups and techniques and on many occasions written extensive emails and PMs to fewllow members to help them shoot bubbles, smoke etc. You might have missed quite a few of my posts then.

With regard to PP of this moon all I did was open up different layers of curves, contrast and levels and just adjusted till it looked like this. My request for CC was also to know whether it looked ok the way it is. I am after all an inexperienced person when it comes to lots of aspects of photography and I am going through a learning curve. Sometimes something that looks good to me might not in the end be technically good or there might need some improvement.

But I am really glad the image is reasonably good, it means I am starting to learn to keep things under the right perspective and use the controls of PS with more confidence.

thank you again for your kind comments

Just out of interest, did you let the AF take care of it, or did you focus manually?

Quite possibly, I'd been away from the forum a lot until recently.

I think evaluating moon shots is a lot easier than many other types of photography, since it mostly boils down to:

- Is it sharp?
- Is the fine detail visible?
- Can you still see detail in the shadow and highlight areas
- Are there any aberrations (usually seen as coloured lines on the periphery)?
- Is the colour pleasing?

Only the last of these is subjective, so assessing it isn't very hard.

That's a corker Amin!
Almost perfect I would say.
Maybe the highlights are a little blown.

I think is superb.
Claudio

Mark, that's precisely one of the things I wanted to know. I went to great efforts to not let the highlights get blown up while PP also, so in my editor I couldn't see any highlights blown up.
Is it only me or I am missing something? I do have a calibrated monitor too with the spyder 3

thanks

Blown highlights have nothing much to do with PP.

If they're blown, they're blown, and there's nothing you can do to get back the detail that's been lost.

The best you can do is expose so that the highlights are at the far right of the histogram, but no further than that.

After that, it's about adjusting the contrast so that you pull as much out of the shadows as you can, while still maintaining the dynamic range.

Experiment with the shadow/highlight tool if you have PhotoShop. Just make sure that you adjust the midtone contrast too, if you go this route, since it's very easy to merrily boost the shadows, pull back the highlights, and get a result that looks vile.

My most useful PP technique is to do the very best I can, then save it and leave it alone till the next day. I often see things I missed.

Thanks for that Chris

The original RAW file I shot doesn't have blown highlights. If there is any then I must have overdone with levels, hence me mentioning it

Thanks

I like it

One trick in PhotoShop - Levels, is to hold down the alt key when moving the sliders, this will reveal any clipping as you move the slider.

Also works in PS raw converter.

Thats the trick I use and I stopped the slider right at the point that clippings were about to start so limited it there before the blown ups appeared.

That's why I wanted to know more about this as I had used this method then why did the blown ups still appear? Is there something else that I need to take into account while doing this to avoid highlights blowing up?

Hmmm, that's an odd one then. I have fiddled with my monitor in case it was too bright. but the crater bottom right still has no tones in it.
How does the PSD file look? Maybe the JPEG is throwing away the last few levels of highlight.

On an artistic level it looks blinkin' lovely and would print really well.