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RGB Smoke
2nd PlaceRGB Smoke
EddyG


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Smoke (Advanced Editing II)
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Lens: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Location: My basement
Date: Sep 12, 2004
Aperture: ƒ/16
ISO: 125
Shutter: 1/60 sec
Galleries: Studio
Date Uploaded: Sep 12, 2004

First thing I did was drill some holes in a scrap piece of 2x4 at varying depths to hold some match sticks. Then I started shooting a single match. I went through a bunch of matches trying to find out how to get them to smoke the most... unfortunately the results were highly unpredictable (I was using a box of really old kitchen matches... the box was probably at least 5 years old, and maybe that was part of the problem...) But for that box of matches, blowing them out while the "tip" was still burning (before it got to the wood) usually resulted in the most smoke.

Anyway... moved up to two matches, and then three. Then I got the idea to try and color the smoke. I tried lighting the smoke with gels, but because of the close proximity of the matches to each other, had no luck. I then cut little strips of red, green and blue gel, taped them together and placed this home-made "tri-color filter" in front of the lens. This colored the smoke, but also the match sticks (which I figured I could fix in post). But where the edges of the gels overlapped was a visible seam -- and trying to clone it out without being obvious proved difficult (because of the intricate, non-repetitive details of the smoke)...

So... I decided to do some selective re-saturation (the opposite of selective de-saturation?)... took one of the shots of plain white smoke, and used three masked adjustment layers (one each for red, green and blue) in "Overlay" mode at 33% opacity and arrived at my originally-envisioned effect much more easily!

Shot with the Canon 100mm/2.8 Macro with a flash to camera-right.

(07159)

Statistics
Place: 2 out of 99
Avg (all users): 7.3805
Avg (commenters): 8.1290
Avg (participants): 7.1250
Avg (non-participants): 7.4965
Views since voting: 13042
Views during voting: 462
Votes: 205
Comments: 56
Favorites: 66 (view)


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AuthorThread
03/12/2007 09:48:46 PM
Well I like it regardless of tools used to create it ...
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/22/2004 09:31:09 AM
nice job man! its simple but really cool
09/22/2004 03:44:58 AM
You told; so we know! But what good is a photo which gets all its masterful effects from Gimp / Photoshop? Nothing personal, just trying to point out the lax in DPChallenge rules ;o(
However, I honestly appreciate all the experimental work you've done to achieve the effect ;o)
09/21/2004 10:20:41 PM
Nothing personal EddieG, but IMHO this is not much different from Labuda creating broken glass shards...
09/21/2004 03:11:13 AM
Way to go Eddy!

One of these days I hope to master the art.

COngrats!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 10:26:52 PM
Nice shot! I want to do something like this. Bravo!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 08:31:21 PM
Congratulations!!! Beautifully done, one of my top picks this challenge.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 11:31:37 AM
Very clever idea! Congrats on the ribbon :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 10:02:38 AM
Eddy, this is incredible! Congrats on the well deserved ribbon...
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 09:55:24 AM
Congratulations. Great shot. I don't kow how I missed this during voting. It would have been my fav.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 09:42:38 AM
Thanks for all the great comments everyone!.

I have to say that terje changed his comment three times during this challenge... his first comment was simply:

EddyG?

Then, a few days later, he changed it to something like:

EddyG or Kiwiness for sure! Good luck!

and then a few days after that, he changed it to the "final" version you see below. I thought the whole sequence was pretty funny. I didn't show this picture to anybody else or tell anyone which entry was mine, so to Terje I say: "good guess!" (and congrats on your ribbon!)

Thanks again for the nice comments!
09/20/2004 08:00:34 AM
Congrats on your ribbon ! This is just too cool !
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 07:14:15 AM
Great idea!!! Love it and congrats!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 04:34:38 AM
Congrats on the ribbon here, very well deserved ...

But thanks heaps for the "how did they do this?" commentry, and that is really useful :) Really well described, especially that rather than just listing what worked, you took us through the steps of what didn't.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 03:41:43 AM
Congrats on the red ! This was one of my top picks. Wonderfully creative.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 03:00:41 AM
Congrats, stunning shot! :-) Thanks for the description, too. :-)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 02:49:40 AM
Congrats Eddy. I was wondering the whole time how you did that. I really thought you had created this effect on the fly. One way of creating more smoke is by putting a bit of oil on the match head before lighting it, it works well!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 01:59:29 AM
Congrats on the red ribbon.wondered how you got the colours - tri-color filter .. cool
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 01:08:57 AM
Congrats on the red ribbon.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 12:31:39 AM
Great pic....Congrats....and thank you for posting how you did it.. awesome
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 12:28:27 AM
Congrats on the ribbon! Great description on how you did it. This is one of the shots where i was like, "how the heck?!". Masked layers huh? wow...very cool.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 12:10:44 AM
Congratulations, Eddy! This shot and Kiwi's might as well have had your signatures on them. I didn't get a chance to vote, but I had this pegged for the blue. Fabulous!

EDIT- Bongo was thinkin' da same thing...

Message edited by author 2004-09-20 00:12:02.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 12:08:35 AM
I love this shot!
Had it pegged for the blue!
Congratulations on an excellent image!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 12:05:48 AM
EddieG Congratulations on your red. I suspected this was you following the rgb theme. Nevertheless, this comp has poetry.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/20/2004 12:02:29 AM
Awesome shot EddyG! Congrats!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
09/19/2004 11:06:49 PM
very creative and very well done. The match sticks look good. very well spaced and the smoke is cool. Bumping up.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/19/2004 10:08:17 PM
I'd sure like to see how this was done after it's over. Great pic.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/18/2004 05:08:29 AM
great entry, fantastic job with the lighting. hope this does well!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/18/2004 12:07:45 AM
returning for comments .Getting the three lights must have been tough.. very creative and very well executed. this is another 10 from me.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/17/2004 02:02:33 PM
This is a great idea for smoke. Great color and lighting, and especially good composition.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/17/2004 12:49:23 PM
Wow! How did you do that. This is incredible! 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/17/2004 07:57:57 AM
excellent pic, well done - i comment with a critisism if I could find anything to critisise :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/17/2004 06:50:38 AM
Wow.Excellent idea, composition and shot. 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/16/2004 05:46:39 PM
Good planning and execution. Exposure right on - black background fits perfectly.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/16/2004 01:09:08 PM
Very nice effect. On my monitor all the colours are seperate and I thought you used perspectice to get lights on the smoke. I downloaded it and lightened it somewhat (to see what others see) am even more intrigued to learn how you did it?
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/16/2004 03:25:29 AM
Love this shot and would love to know how you did it.
I'm predicting top 10 finish.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/15/2004 07:04:41 PM
A nice shot but a bit lame title.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/15/2004 09:08:44 AM
Very nice!! Like this shot, great colours.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/15/2004 06:51:29 AM
Wow! :-) Creative idea, amazing implemetation! I am very curious about the description of this photo! The smoke is wonderful clear, composition with the increasing matches is great. But my favourite thing here is the shades of RGB colours! 10! 10! 10!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/15/2004 06:32:26 AM
EddyG for sure. If this doesn't take the blue ribbon, I don't know who will :-) Good Luck EddyG!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/14/2004 09:38:18 PM
Nice composition of three with colors. Pushed it way up in my ratings. Nicely lit and focused. Congratulations.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/14/2004 05:57:47 PM
I love this one! Def. one of my favs out of this challenge. It looks awesome, although, the light on the right hand match is a little bright, which tends to draw my eye to that instead of to the smoke
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/14/2004 01:05:35 PM
Easily one of my top 3...Great work!
I'm not sure what else to say about this, but the shot speaks for itself.

I predict a ribbon for this one. 9.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/14/2004 06:16:13 AM
Very creative and well executed... very clever of you NOT to include the fire !
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 10:44:00 PM
Nifty idea. Well executed too.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 09:11:21 PM
veri interesting composition and tack sharp. great colors in the smoke. I'll be interested in seeing how this was created since it looks to me like the smoke is not coming from the matches.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 06:27:23 PM
The colors are so cool.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 02:39:34 PM
The colored smoke really adds interest.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 11:48:00 AM
10 because its purdy.and creative :) would maybe have dodged the match on the right a liiittttle bit for balance but that's just me.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 04:01:41 AM
Like the idea - and the definition in the smoke, a difficult capture well achieved. The actual patterning of the smoke itself is a touch chaotic, I think i'd have found a simpler composition more appealling.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 01:21:12 AM
Love those colours and arrangement. Excellent composition. Great job. 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 12:32:11 AM
Amazing a10... i like to have it on my wall....
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 12:16:44 AM
Incredible! 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 12:14:40 AM
wow...this is a great shot...I've looked at it for over a minutes trying to figure it out...so far...im guessing colored lights....good job!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 12:13:42 AM
nice editing
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/13/2004 12:10:58 AM
Wow. This is beautiful. Hope you explain how to do this after the challenge is over. 10.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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