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Adlusting levels


Hoogle

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Adjusting levels

Could somebody have a go at this for me I went to 2 firework displays tonight the 2nd 1 I managed to get my camera settings to how I like them on the big wide angle lens I want to try and blacken out the sky a bit more without loosing the detail in fireworks or the light effects I have got with my aperature settings. I would like it more blacked out but even with masking I cant seem to get it balanced. Nor do I want colour leakage from over adjusting it.
The image I want to change.
finale.jpg
The correct setup However I still need to be able to recognise the city backdrop as it is my home town and our lift testing tower is our main landmark. I have tried several methods curves hue saturation and levels I just want to take some red out of the sky line but without loosing the firework details. I did not compensate with the long exposures and forgot it will lighten the whole image of any available light.
 
Last edited:

Hoogle

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Sorry tried correcting the spelling of the title but wont seem to accept
 

Paul

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H why is there a hue around your firework explosion, and not in the example image below?
 

Hoogle

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Because they are 2 images blended together on the high resolution 1s and the fireworks on the image taken by me I had it all balanced in camera settings but the background photo of this 1 is another picture of fireworks but was before the display started and I liked the image my photos were to dark for the scene.
 

Paul

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Thats going to be difficult with just the one image mate.
 

Hoogle

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Does this look Natural
_DSC0009.jpg

The fireworks at this point are irrelevant as I will be merging several images together but I want to get the background right first. The fireworks from this display were very poor and had no big 1s so to make them look better I want to merge merge some of the fireworks from this angle with the 1s I took from another display.
 

Paul

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I played with the light settings and did a couple of marquee selections around the fireworks inverted and lowered light again, then over layed the two images (original and new);)
 

Hoogle

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ANd these are going to be the images I am using but cant process the raw files until I have background right but this is 1 where I have adjusted the blacks more but they dont have the backdrop.
_DSC0114.jpg
this is 3 images merged so not final results yet
 

Hoogle

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They are not going to be the fireworks I use so dont worry about them they are just an image from google. The aim is to fill the sky with them as the 1s with the nice backdrop were displayed in a stadium so they did not have the big aerial fireworks but did have lots of the streamy tails 1. I want to reduce the red in the sky but keep it natural looking so when I merge my decent high resolution pictures I wont get things like the hue posted in my original I am hoping to be able to just take my actual fire work images and just blend them in using screen mode so need the sky blacked out but not totally black as I would like to keep the floodlights looking sharp and clear like the original.
 

Hoogle

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Not to worry I am just tired now I am sure I will work it out in the morning. Once I get the background right the rest will be easy to do in raw conversion and blending my firework pictures. Thanks any way.
 

iDad

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try a layer(soft light) with the red color your going for then delete around the glow area on the upper layer with a very soft brush........just a thought
 

Hoogle

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Yeah that was my original idea But I was getting hue I think I just need to go to bed now and look at it tomorrow I am just exhausted I walked 10 miles today and I am just not use to that kind of activity. So I am just exhauseted and being inpatient on getting my work done. Sometimes you just need to know when to stop and come back to something I am sure this is really basic stuff. But when you are over tired nothing seems to work. Thanks Guys.
 

Hoogle

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Yes Steve that is perfect There you go really simple solution and I couldnt even come to it but still I will try again tomorrow with my images. Just goes to show what happens when you miss your meds as you were out. lol and when I took them just made me so dozey. THank you so much.
 

Hoogle

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yeah it is 1.30am I have not really left home in 6 months and me and my friend decided to go and see what pics we could get and just ended up walking everywhere and it has really knocked it out of me. HOwever it is a good sign couldnt have done it last month so I am on the mend. THanks again guys Goodnight.
 

Steve

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I just played with it and you may like the results better if in Color Balance you reset the slider to center in Midtones, select Shadows and move the top slider towards cyan.
Goodnight
 

Attachments

  • finale1.psd
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