Bowdle Supercell - Approaching Mesocyclone
by jperez1690

Comment:
Thanks Melethia,

It was absolutely the most awe inspiring storm I have ever seen...and definitely not something I would want to have sneaking up on me!

Waning Gibbous Moon Mosaic - Color Enhanced
by jperez1690

Comment:
Hi Gunnsi, thanks very much.

Here is a link with a great discussion of the process:

//www.atalaia.org/filipe/moon/colorofthemoon.htm

The process described on that site uses the Hue & Saturation command in Photoshop to generate the saturated colors. I prefer to convert images like this to the LAB color space, because I think it gives me more control over how the color saturates. LAB is a color space where one channel (L) represents all the Luminosity information in the image, including all contrast and details. The A and B channels take care of pure color vales without any contrast and detail (A = blue to yellow, B = green to magenta). You can adjust the curves for the A and B channels to emphasise the saturation of those colors (steeper curves give more saturation). LAB is an amazing color space for color correction, and for anyone who is interested in understanding it in great depth, I highly recommend the following book:

Photoshop LAB Color... By Dan Margulis

Gunnsi, I hope that helps. I know it's not really a step-by-step in LAB, but if you follow the information on the 'color the moon' site, I think that could get you started. Let me know how it goes!

Jeremy
The Belt of Venus

Starry Night
by elsapo

Comment:
This is great! Open, anchored, and wondrous. Were you and the foreground lit by moonlight in this shot?

Aurora_7780.jpg
by kirbic

Comment:
What a beautiful shot! Casseopeia, Perseus, Auriga, Taurus and Orion swept up by that incredible auroral blaze.

J. Herschel Crater
by jperez1690

Comment:
David, thanks for the question. It helped me realize I was a bit careless with the details on this photo.
I should clarify that the crater's name is actually "J. Herschel" Crater. It is the large, rough, oval crater at the bottom of the image, a bit right of center, just touching the nighttime edge of the moon. (There is a bright, very oval, smaller crater breaking its rim on the right side.) The nearly perfectly round crater at top, just left of center is called Plato. The smooth, semicircle at top right is called Sinus Iridum (Bay of Rainbows).

Message edited by author 2005-10-23 00:08:44.

Pleiades and Hyades Star Clusters
by jperez1690

Comment:
Thanks for the comments!

Maceo, 30 second tripod-mounted shots seem to work alright if you have a nice wide shot. But tracking with an equatorial telescope mount sure does open up a lot of possibilities. I bought my scope from Orion (www.telescope.com) for $550 plus shipping. You can buy just the equatorial mount itself for around $330. I also bought a $50 polar alignment scope that fits the mount and allows me to get a nice reliable alignment every time.

You might also want to do a search for +barn +door +astrophotography on Google for a more home-made approach that should be a less expensive option. I haven't tried it myself, but I've seen some really good results.

Country Road
by Judith Polakoff

Comment:
Nice lines leading up to the silo! Great color differentiation and crispness in the green foliage and blue sky.

Night Falls
by elsapo

Comment:
Very nice capture of Mars, the Pleiades, and Hyades. Nice work capturing the sense of false dawn from the city lights to the east. Collapsing the horizon right to the bottom of the frame gives a great sense of wide-open-ness. I really like your use of the sillouetted phtographer/astronomer as a catch. Bummer that noise smoothing ended up cancelling out some of the fainter stars that were likely evident. But I know how the "too much noise" responses can be an incentive.

The One
by jperez1690

Comment:
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.

As I've gone through all the images in the contest, I keep coming back to the fact that the ring doesn't look as smooth and shiny as I would like it to. I think a lot of that has to do with the cluttered background it is reflecting. I spent so much time worrying about light sources and backdrop, that I forgot about what was behind the camera. Lessons learned.

If anyone is interested, I've got a couple photographs of the setup (with my film camera in place of the digital camera, and a glove in place of my hand for the shadow).

Labeled setup
Lighting setup

I realized that the 'catch' of the image probably wouldn't make sense to anyone not familiar with Tolkien's books. And that's okay with me. I really had fun coming up with the idea, and executing it. (By the way, the ring belongs to my wife--she won it in a local radio contest 3 years ago during the LOTR frenzy.) There are definitely some technical aspects that could have used some polishing.

sche2964: Thank you for your specific input. It's well taken. I had considered a brighter chain, but in the end, I wanted it to appear dark and heavy, the way a ring-bearer might perceive it...still, visually, it probably would have been more striking.

LadeeM: You're absolutely right about the focus. The 15 sec. exposure with kids running up and down the hall, and cluttered background reflections really hurt me there. It's definitely given me some food for thought in how to overcome that in the future.

Digital Quixote: That's an interesting point about the thumbnail. I vote on the images randomly as the server feeds them my way, so I hadn't considered that point. What to do? ;)

Sonda: Thanks for the comment on the background. I was sort of going for a rocky cave wall (since the ring repeatedly traveled through caverened regions), with the ring exposed for the taking. I must concede that it was usually around Bilbo's or Frodo's necks and would never have been dangled around like that. :)

Snackwells and BradP: Thanks for the suggestion about desaturating the colored catchlights on the chain. I think I didn't mind it at first, because I felt it gave some reason for drawing the red into another portion of the image besides the ring. But those catchlights are so harsh, that the color does seem distracting.

BradP and glad2badad: Oy. Yeah, I'm not happy with the red border either :-/ I know that running out of time is a crummy excuse...so uh...let's pretend I didn't just try to use that as an excuse ;) I think just leaving it black would have been a better call.

DustDevil: I would loved to have seen your concept. If you ever do that, send me a PM and a link!

srbrubaker: I agree with you about the background color. During post-processing, I tried to change the background color to something that worked better with the colors in the ring, but everything failed miserably. I needed to control that while making the shot.

Isabeau: That's the kind of nerdiness I was shooting for :) Thanks for the comment on the shade of red. I think your right, giving it more of a yellow component would give it a more fiery appearance.

auburnfan0930: Thanks. I like your observation of "I can't decide if it is clawing in passion or stealing it."

graphicfunk: Are you referring to the pinkishness of the red? I agree that it could use a warmer shade. Although I couldn't get rid of the red and still capture the allusion to the Lord of the Rings imagery. Thank you for the comment!

Exotic Beauty in Gold & Pearl
by Cantique

Comment:
You've got nice light, focus and reflections in the gold and pearl. It's really a beautiful work of art, and I'm pretty sure you were trying to reinforce its exotic nature, but the complexity of the flower you've set it on is really distracting to me. It camoflauges the interesting contours of the piece.