When I Art...

[Xiz]

^ Holy shit dude thanks a bunch. And yeah, it is actually a lower rez file that I did just for FFR, I can link you to a higher one if interested, but the same issue occurs. It will just make post easier.

I can't thank you enough for your advice. I'll take this to heart.

[noname219]

You're welcome.

Sure, you can link me the full resolution shot. (could make a damn good background if you ask me )

Another question : do you shot in RAW or in JPEG ?

[Xiz]

Here is the full rez shot:

And lol you are the 4th person to say it would make a great background :3 I'm so honored!!


EDIT: Now that I look at it, yeah you are right haha. I see what you mean now.

[noname219]

Same modifications applied :

Note that I removed the small piece of grass at the bottom. ^^

[Xiz]

So sexy One day I'll learn haha. Thanks for your help man

[LLaMaSaUceYup]

Damn that snowflake looks so perfect. Not sure I have really seen one before in person. P.S. Photoshop tips ftw.

[Xiz]

Got another for ya.



(Full quality)

[Spenner]

Good work on making those textures much cleaner noname, looks good

Great stuff Xiz, you're definitely getting some solid stuff, keep doing what you're doing. Be as self critical as you can, especially to the more subtle qualities like noname has pointed out; definition of the finer details, perspective and whatnot, and colour correction. Though I must say for the most part it seems like you're keeping attention to these things, and it shows~

Have you done high pass sharperning before? I use it the most frequent out of other sharpening techniques. After flattening your image, duplicate the layer, Filter> other> highpass filter: drag the slider to JUST when you can see likeable details be brought out, not until you see haloing. Set the highpass'd layer blending mode to either Soft Light or Overlay. Overlay is much harsher, and sometimes I just reduce the opacity of the layer aswell.

[Xiz]

I shot this tonight:

Father & Son


Edit: I look at this now and see how much grain there is... this is my first attempt at this... I'll keep trying lmfao

[Spenner]

For a first attempt I say you did a damn good job. Nice job man

[Xiz]

Originally Posted by Spenner

For a first attempt I say you did a damn good job. Nice job man

If you don't mind, what would you do differently xD

Should I boost some things, change some things... I dunno haha

[Fission]

from a completely uneducated perspective, the edges on the silhouettes should be more refined

[Pseudo Enigma]

waaatterrrrmarkkkssss
everywhere.
Also why do you keep changing the type face lol the serif one looked fine imo

good job though. As a city kid I'm still surprised there are places where you can see that many stars. It isn't shopped right?

[Xiz]

Originally Posted by Pseudo Enigma

waaatterrrrmarkkkssss
everywhere.
Also why do you keep changing the type face lol the serif one looked fine imo

good job though. As a city kid I'm still surprised there are places where you can see that many stars. It isn't shopped right?

The only thing that is shopped is the color correction to really make it pop. That's about it.

[Xiz]

Got one more for ya. This was taken about an hour outside of Denver.

Milky Way

[Spenner]

I'd say your shutter speed might be hanging out a tad too long, judging by some of the subtle motion blur happening in some of the stars. What did your originals look like before post processing? If you can get something slightly underexposed from what you have there, I don't see how you might run into problems boosting the stars later on, while leaving the blacks as they are. For star photos this is over exposed.

Another thing you could try playing with is short bursts of exposures, and merging them with this tool: http://russellbrown.com/scripts.html (search "Stack-o-matic" on the site).

But that's something else to play with eventually. It's what people use for merging water movement exposures to give it that foggy long exposed look.

The first photo is closer to the ideal exposure IMO but perhaps still a bit high. What aperture, f/8? f/16? I'd probably have had one shot at infinity at as low f/# as you could manage it with details ideally seen (anything to get the exposure faster), and another one for the subjects to be in focus, and merging them of course.

All in all you did pretty good though, wherever you are that sky is wickedly clear, jealous. I think you said it was a 24mm lens on facebook, that being said I think you did well with keeping the shake and star trails minimal~

EDIT: Oh yeah another big thing is to play with the colour luminosities and shit in Camera Raw if you have a shot like that last one which is particularly bright, without reducing star sharpness.

This is just roughly done from the image you posted, done firstly by making a levels, curves, and Black & White layer. The black and white layer was done by finding what ideal contrast level looked good, then seeing what blending mode looked good with the adjustment layer, which ended up being Linear Dodge.

That's pretty weird shit but it's just something I happened to stumble on lol. Anyhow I think this looks more modest of an exposure.



Just for fun I was tweaking with the other one too, and I think there's a lot of potential with playing with curves and shit. You can get some really defined details pulled from it.



You could do this while still retaining a lot more of the stars in the picture but I don't have enough time to mess too much with that. Basically just reducing midtones but keeping the highlights isolated/still bright. IMO it's a better result to have less stars in the sky, but having those dazzling patches of galaxy be more noticeable, but go for whatever suits your tastes~

[Xiz]

Thanks for all your help Spenner. I took a few things you said into consideration and came out with this:

Totally Prof Pic Worthy



Also to answer your question, I used this website to find where there was the least amount of light pollution in my state. If you are on the east coast you are kinda screwed. Also I was going with f/1.4, sooooo yeah lmfao. I'm lucky to be able to drive an hour and get this shot. Denver ftw.

Night Sky Finder

[Spenner]

Damn son. A lot of the places here are most clear by the great lakes, but even then I don't see anything remotely like that. I suppose if I had a long enough exposure I could though, or a ridiculous ISO.

Nice stuff, only beef with that one is the saturation, I feel like it makes the artifacts/grain more noticeable. TBH I'd try some without a subject there, just work on getting a solid shot of just the sky. The silhouettes don't add too too much at the moment, but play with some ideas for things you could add. Might be some interesting things, like bringing a small table with toy houses and cars and such, make it look like a whole nightly scene :P

I also wouldn't normally suggest something like this but having a wide angle adaptor at the end of your lens might be cool too. However I think that would greatly increase the blue fringe you see on the sides of stars, if that matters.

[rushyrulz]

Xiv I hope you can see this message now that the chat has died down. I wanted to say congrats! I know you can do a little bitter but I always want to tip my hat off to you. Through thick and thin I will still be here to always support you. I know times are hard, but you always come back with a good attitude. I wish you the very best on your next runs, and hope you get an even better score. I will continue to be here and find new strats as always. Great job Xiv. I am rooting for you always! You should be proud.

If anyone gets this reference, you are my eternal friend.

[Xiz]

I never posted this one, not as good as the others but still one of my favorites: