Morning Moon

[michaellxv]

While up on the roof taking a look at the planetary conjunction rising I could not miss the full moon setting at my back.

In the pale light of the dawn sky the full moon was going down behind a narrow band of cloud. Gradually fading from a bright orb to that soft yellow glow of moonset.

None of the shots turned out anywhere near as nice as it looked. This is a composite, you will have to use a bit imagination for the rest.

:help:needed.

[renormalised]

What was your ISO setting, f stop and such for the piccie??

[michaellxv]

For the backgroud, clouds etc
f/3.2
1/10sec
ISO-200

For the moon that I pasted over the top
f/6.4
1/125sec
ISO-100

FinePix S5600
Captured in RAW mode.
Converted to a TIFF.
Processed in GIMP.

The moon will be up again soon. I should go out and try again.

[bmitchell82]

Try softening the blend between the moon and the halo, its a very stark change. Other than that it would be a good photo.

[michaellxv]

Thanks Brendan, i'll have another go at it.
I've got a bunch if shots from this evening to sort through as well.

[michaellxv]

Ok, spent a bit of time reworking this. I have used two different moon shots to produce these.

I think I got a bit heavy handed with the first one as the moon is no longer round. I played with brightness and contrast to bring up the clouds a bit in the background.

In the second one I played with levels to bring up the cloud and used a different method to blend the two.

Whaddya think :question:

[bmitchell82]

if your using photoshop, use Layer masks and bring it in smoothly, i can see where you have "lassoed" the moon to select it and process or exclude, it kills the blend

[michaellxv]

I must be missing something or maybe I don't have the right shots to be blending together.

The moon that I want to use has a completely black background, the clouds don't show up at all so I still end up with a sharp edge.

[bmitchell82]

Some blending techniques need to be shown to make it clear how to do it. if the moon has clouds passing in front, possibly try and soften the edges of the moon itself then blend back though with the clouds. This is why layer masks in photoshop are powerful as they allow localised processing of a image leaving the rest exactly how you want.

[niko]

maybe try feathering a little at the moon's edge? Brendan (or others) might be able to explain this better than I could

just my 2c worth

niko