Show Off Your Lunar Post Processing!

[Bernoulli]

Let's try an experiment among all you Moon shooters. I've posted below a picture I took of the moon on Wednesday, and this shot has no post processing at all except that I balanced the colors (I always get a red cast). No pixels are blown out and it's well focused.

I want to invite all of you who enjoy posting pictures of the Moon to download this image, do your own post-processing, and repost it on this thread. Let's not be too serious about this, do whatever moves you to create an interesting image. Give us some clues to what you did and maybe we can all learn something.

So come on and give it a try! I don't know if this will work, but it might be fun.

The image is at prime focus through a 4 inch apo refractor, 900 mm, 1/50 sec into a 50D at ISO 100. I usually expose on the bright side to bring out detail in the shadows.
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[Celestron]

Ok i'll take a first crack at it . Now this is to my personal taste on PP . First i adjusted the Variations on it adding a bit of grayscale to it . Then i used Custom Filter and last Noise Despeckle . Thats all . It perhaps could be just a bit darker but very slightly but i didn't want to loose any detail on the terminator .

[Peerie]

In the Celestron's thread I suggested adding shooting data and post processing data to the rules. This would allow others to experiment.

I couldn't resist having a go. Post processing is:

image>adjustments>shadows/highlights
Shadow: Amount 60, Width 20, Radius 20 Highlights: Amount 50, Width 50, Radius 20 Midtone Contrast +25

Filter>sharpen>unsharp mask
Amount 90, Radius 1.5, Threshold 3

Produces this:

[unmanedpilot]

Let's not be too serious about this, do whatever moves you to create an interesting image.

Well if you say so..

Defiantly not a serious post, I had trouble sleeping tonight, saw the topic and had to try this:

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g28/unmanedpilot/EDITEDmoon.jpg

I kinda like it :)

[Bernoulli]

I kinda like it :)

Me too! Looks like the man in the moon needs a cup of coffee.

[Catanonia]

lol, great image there :)

[Bernoulli]

I guess I get to post one too. I like them dark and full of detail. Here’s my procedure, all in CS4:

1. Knock down the highlights on the right to even out the illumination without losing detail near the terminator. About 25 on the highlights slider.

2. Play with curves till I like the contrast and brightness. This usually takes a while. I try to spread the pixels fairly evenly over the histogram.

3. Adjust hue, my shots usually seem to start out a little too purple.

4. Give an ever-so-subtle saturation boost to emphasize the natural colors, about 20.

5. Sharpen to only 0.5 pixels of radius at a level of about 80. I like to avoid obvious sharpening artifacts.

[Chopper Al]

Well, this should have been routine by now, at least according to Arthur C. Clarke.

Anyway, I just did some pretty basic adjustments on the photo of the moon (great shot by the way). Bit of sharpening, played with the histogram and increased the color saturation a bit. The finished image was then brought into Cinema 4D, a 3D modelling package, and used as the backdrop for Aries Lunar Lander (from 2001 - A Space Odyssey). Built the 3D model a while ago, along with the Discovery.

If anyone is interested in looking at the other models, feel free...
http://s291.photobucket.com/albums/ll293/Chopper_Al/

Al

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll293/Chopper_Al/moon_1_0003.jpg

[HaroldC3]

The moon looked a little lonely, so I added a friend :)

Adjusted contrast, brightness, highlights and shadows, sharpness reduced saturation a bit.

[unmanedpilot]

Awesome! Love seeing Saturn in the corner :)

[Celestron]

Tonights moon was 100% and "SEEING" conditions were not great and therefore i could not get a perfect focus . Maybe be also because of being 100% . Hard to deal with . The first image is for anyone to try out their processing skills to make it look like a decent moon . The second image i processed best i could but not completely satisfied with it . First thing i did was change it to Grayscale Mode . Then did Custom Sharpening then a .3 Gaussin Blur . Then adjusted Levels to tone down the bright spots . Not to my likings but best i could do . BTW this was shot in RAW ( my first time using RAW this camera ) and it definitly reminded me why i DON'T like RAW . So try your process on the first one and Cs'&Cs' on the second . Also , that is a star in the upper right hand corner .

[PackingMyBags]

Well if you say so..

Defiantly not a serious post, I had trouble sleeping tonight, saw the topic and had to try this:

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g28/unmanedpilot/EDITEDmoon.jpg

I kinda like it :)

LOL! Full of WIN!:lol:

[Bernoulli]

BTW this was shot in RAW ( my first time using RAW this camera ) and it definitly reminded me why i DON'T like RAW . So try your process on the first one and Cs'&Cs' on the second .

I shoot RAW but the only processing I do there is to adjust the color balance because it's easy to do in that format. Then I convert to TIFF and PP from there. Maybe I'm just used to the CS4 interface using an image, I think their RAW interface is much less intuitive, but that may just be because it's what I'm used to.

I tried but couldn't PP the first one any better than you did.

Also , that is a star in the upper right hand corner .

That star is the heart of the scorpion - Antares. The moon passed in front of it right at moonrise and it popped out the other side at 10:11 PM my time. It was hazy here so I didn't have the telescope out, but I watched it emerge with the binos.

HaroldC3 - That's great PP.

[Celestron]

Here is another shot i processed . Maybe a little better than the first but still not well pleasing . Used Custom Sharpening (3 , -15) , Grayscale , Slight adjustment with Variations . First images is the original changed to jpeg and your welcome to try your processing . The second image is the one i processed . Cs'&Cs' welcome .

[Bill Boehme]

Here is my attempt. It lost some IQ (mainly contrast) when I did a save for web.

371366

[Celestron]

I never use Save For the Web because you definitly loose alot of Signal and Detail . I always just save back to the folder i took it from and upload from there .

[Bill Boehme]

I never use Save For the Web because you definitly loose alot of Signal and Detail . I always just save back to the folder i took it from and upload from there .

That is also my preference, but I was trying to get it within the 150K limit without applying too much compression and I generally do not put other's images on my photo site.

I forgot to mention what editing I did, so here it is:
I opened it in ACR and tried out Bernoulli's suggestion of knocking down the highlights with the Recovery slider (and also a bit with the Brightness slider). I also tweaked the WB to get the moon closer to neutral. After that, I more-or-less followed the procedure that I posted here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=7695963&postcount=1).