Image for C&C

To me it looks like a black background and a brush using white spots to make the stars. The "northern lights" appear to be a gradient overlay masked in.

I may be completely off here, but that's what I get from it. Why? The background is to uniform and there is no twinkle or blurr to the "stars" that a longer shutter would induce. The "lights" also seem separated from the bg, not part of it.

Doesn't do a lot for me, but if you like it what does it matter what anyone else thinks? I would develope a thicker skin or try pointing your camera at the sky for the real thing.

It's a cool pic. If you fooled people, that means it was successful.

Archibald wrote in post #18096150
It's a cool pic. If you fooled people, that means it was successful.

This. ^^^

It's funny how photography gets a disproportionate percentage of dogmatic literalists compared to other creative pursuits. I understand why, but sometimes it takes the fun out of it for me. Everyone who ever picked up a camera for the first time did it for one reason or another, but for me it wasn't about being a strict documentarian.

I'll agree that the Northern Lights portion did strike me as a fabricated overlay immediately. I was fooled by the stars at first, but now agree that they appear too uniform to be credible--there may be more brush work you could do to address that. But having said that it's still a good result.