Life, Family, and Photography

So this week was the week of the SuperMoon. The net is filled with shots of the moon both real images and images where either them moon was added from a photoshop brush or as a composite. I went out to the beach and took quite a few images even waiting in hopes to see a Sea Turtle come ashore to lay it's eggs but to no avail. Now, my original intent was to get a photo of the moon just as it cleared the horizon and it would have been sweet it if that shot had presented itself to me but it just wasn't meant to be I guess. I did get some shots after the moon had cleared some low clouds out over the Atlantic and they turned out ok but nothing to write home about in my opinion. Mind you like most photographers I am harsher on my personal work than I am on others and rightfully so. I did manage to get some long exposure shots of the water with the moons reflection and some semi close shots of the Moon. After getting the shots back tot he computer and looking at them for a few an Idea hit me and the editing began. The following is the creation of my digital art piece "SuperMoon".
These two Images make up the body of my shot and here is how we start. Like anything Photoshop it is important to understand that there are several ways to accomplish the same thing and some may find other methods easier.

First we do a little bit of editing.in Lightroom.just to bring out some tones and create mood.

Notice I brought out the contrast in both shots and the sky in the moon shot almost looks purple. Yes I agree it does not look right but it will come around later. the moon is the important part at the moment.

Now I am going to go into Photoshop CS4 for a while and work with layers, masks, and filters.
I am going to start buy opening a new blank page to begin working on and then transfer both images to it. I start with a larger page so I can work with both full images. It is over kill but I start at a 6000px square but it will get cropped to a 3/2 ratio like a 4x6 later. Now because I want this to remain a 3/2 I will set the guides on the top and bottom of one of the images. I am also going to place a guide at roughly the upper 1/3 point. I now convert both images into Smart Objects.

Using the Free Transform feature squeeze the water shot until the horizon is lined up with the mark made at the 2/3 guide like the image on the left.

Now bring back the moon shot and place it roughly in the upper 1/3 area over the reflection. The moon is just a tad smaller than I want so i am going to Free Transform this shot a little and enlarge it as well. Pushing the Control button on your key board and left clicking the lower corner of the moon image pulling it down until the desired effect is achieved.






Starting to get the idea? Yeah working with layers can be fun but challenging at times. They can how ever really help to create amazing work. Next i tak a single line copy from a spot in the water scene and free transform it to fit over the top of the moon like so. Add a Motion blur to even out the colors. and use a hard light overlay and the fill slider to bring everything together.



Now we start to button up for the final color editing bringing in a small square brush to gradually refine edges along the water and sky, almost giving a slight haze look to it.. Cropping out un needed areas and geting ready to merge it all onto one file which I do as a set duplicate files to start with that way I do not loose my work.I also use the Warp Transform tool to add an "earthly" curve to the horizon and add a little Gaussian  blur at the Horizon as well.


After I completed that it is time to go to work in Nik Softwares Color Efex Pro 4. I add Detail extraction to the moon alone and then a warm Glamour Glow before topping it off with a Vignette and using control points to keep the vignette off the reflection. I go back to LR where I spend a little time on the histogram and bringing the colors around to where I would like to see them.