[EnglishBob]

Not as happy with this one, the light pollution from a couple of campsites by the lake bleed in to much.

Canon 5DIII, 20S, F/2.8, ISO 3200, 24mm.
   

[EdMak]

OK to me Craig. Ed.

[cuilin]

i like the comp. on this one, the brightness of the campfires and juxtaposition of the campfires and milky way almost make the milky way look like smoke from the fires.

it's fixable, you just need to adjust your white balance to be a little cooler, then do it again, but this time only apply it to the lower half. depending on how you go about it you may need to adjust the brightness and colors of the trees separately. i wish there was either more or less of the big tree on the side.

do you mind if i play with the image? i think this one has a lot of potential.

[EnglishBob]

Have at it Beth, this was my first attempt on processing and not something I have shot before. I usually end up going through several different methods to find something I like.

[EdMak]

Craig, I'n not Beth, !!

The colour settings are all Auto, via Camera Raw in Photoshop, no input from me. You are the judge, you were there. Ed.

[cuilin]

nope, i'm beth.

done in photoshop cc2015
i can send you the .psd file so you can see all of the layers yourself if you like, just pm me your email address and i'll send it over.

cooled off the overall white balance using a curves adjustment layer. i changed the blending mode of this layer to color so the tones wouldn't be affected. keep in mind that rgb is the opposite of cmy(k) so the red channel in curves also affects the amount of cyan, green also affects magenta and blue also affects yellow. there was too much yellow so in the blue channel i pulled the shadow side of the line up a bit, that made the midtones too blue so i pulled the midtones back down to where they were. i was left with a slight magenta cast, so to fix that i switched to the green channel in curves and brought the green shadows up to reduce the amount of magenta.

i made a second curves adjustment layer and pretty much repeated the process of adjusting the blue and green curves channels, like in the first one, only this time i was specifically looking at the bottom right third of the image. i added a gradient mask to this layer. the layer mode for this layer was also set to color. i noticed that this layer turned the pure blacks of the trees to a solid blue color and gave a harsh blue cast to the shadows. i decided to fix this later with a separate hue/sat adj. layer.

i made a third adjustment layer, but it was for tones and not colors this time. so the layer mode was set to luminosity. this curves adj. layer got an S curve to give it more contrast, but the upper third ended up too dark so i copied the gradient mask from the second curves layer and applied it to this one too.

now it was time to start working on specific parts of the image.

the fourth adjustment layer is levels, the idea of this layer was to give the milky way more contrast. i pulled the whites to the left pretty far (165) and moved the midtones left too (.89). then i added a black mask and used a large soft brush with an opacity of 50% to brush back in milky way. the layer blending mode was set to luminosity.

next was a hue/sat adjustment layer to remove the blue from the trees. i set the blues to -100. this left a lot of yellow and red on the trees so i moved to those channels and adjusted to taste. this affected the entire image, so i added a black mask to hide everything and masked just the trees with a soft white brush. i went back with a black brush to clean up the edges around the trees. the layer blending mode was set to color.

the trees were also washed out so the next layer was a quick levels adjustment layer and i pulled the blacks and whites towards the center and moved the midtones around until it looked good. the layer blending mode was set to luminosity. and i copied the previous mask of the trees to this layer as well.

the previously unnoticed yellow clouds in the bottom left were becoming a distraction to me at this point so i minimized them with a hue/sat adj. layer set to blending mode color. the yellows were desaturated to taste, and then the reds, but not as much as the yellows. again, black mask, soft white brush set to a low opacity to paint the hue/sat layer just over that area.

the last layer i selected all (ctrl/cmd a), copy merged (ctrl/cmd shift c) and pasted (ctrl/cmd v). this makes a new layer that merges all of your visible layers. so it's flattening your image into a single layer without actually flattening all of your layers. i wanted to bring out the detail on the milky way so i ran the high pass filter on this layer. i set the blending mode to soft light and added a black mask. a soft white brush set to a low opacity was used to paint the detail back in over the milky way, then i adjusted the opacity of that layer to taste.

flatten and save. actual editing time should be quicker than it takes to read through it if you think more about the concept of each layer you're adding than the technical details of each layer.

[EnglishBob]

Very Nice Beth, I'll give it a whirl and if I can't get close I'll ask for that file Thank you.

[cuilin]

if you shot it in raw then i'd do the first and third and maybe the second layer for the global wb edit in your raw editor.

[leskent]

nope, i'm beth.

done in photoshop cc2015
i can send you the .psd file so you can see all of the layers yourself if you like, just pm me your email address and i'll send it over.

cooled off the overall white balance using a curves adjustment layer. i changed the blending mode of this layer to color so the tones wouldn't be affected. keep in mind that rgb is the opposite of cmy(k) so the red channel in curves also affects the amount of cyan, green also affects magenta and blue also affects yellow. there was too much yellow so in the blue channel i pulled the shadow side of the line up a bit, that made the midtones too blue so i pulled the midtones back down to where they were. i was left with a slight magenta cast, so to fix that i switched to the green channel in curves and brought the green shadows up to reduce the amount of magenta.

i made a second curves adjustment layer and pretty much repeated the process of adjusting the blue and green curves channels, like in the first one, only this time i was specifically looking at the bottom right third of the image. i added a gradient mask to this layer. the layer mode for this layer was also set to color. i noticed that this layer turned the pure blacks of the trees to a solid blue color and gave a harsh blue cast to the shadows. i decided to fix this later with a separate hue/sat adj. layer.

i made a third adjustment layer, but it was for tones and not colors this time. so the layer mode was set to luminosity. this curves adj. layer got an S curve to give it more contrast, but the upper third ended up too dark so i copied the gradient mask from the second curves layer and applied it to this one too.

now it was time to start working on specific parts of the image.

the fourth adjustment layer is levels, the idea of this layer was to give the milky way more contrast. i pulled the whites to the left pretty far (165) and moved the midtones left too (.89). then i added a black mask and used a large soft brush with an opacity of 50% to brush back in milky way. the layer blending mode was set to luminosity.

next was a hue/sat adjustment layer to remove the blue from the trees. i set the blues to -100. this left a lot of yellow and red on the trees so i moved to those channels and adjusted to taste. this affected the entire image, so i added a black mask to hide everything and masked just the trees with a soft white brush. i went back with a black brush to clean up the edges around the trees. the layer blending mode was set to color.

the trees were also washed out so the next layer was a quick levels adjustment layer and i pulled the blacks and whites towards the center and moved the midtones around until it looked good. the layer blending mode was set to luminosity. and i copied the previous mask of the trees to this layer as well.

the previously unnoticed yellow clouds in the bottom left were becoming a distraction to me at this point so i minimized them with a hue/sat adj. layer set to blending mode color. the yellows were desaturated to taste, and then the reds, but not as much as the yellows. again, black mask, soft white brush set to a low opacity to paint the hue/sat layer just over that area.

the last layer i selected all (ctrl/cmd a), copy merged (ctrl/cmd shift c) and pasted (ctrl/cmd v). this makes a new layer that merges all of your visible layers. so it's flattening your image into a single layer without actually flattening all of your layers. i wanted to bring out the detail on the milky way so i ran the high pass filter on this layer. i set the blending mode to soft light and added a black mask. a soft white brush set to a low opacity was used to paint the detail back in over the milky way, then i adjusted the opacity of that layer to taste.

flatten and save. actual editing time should be quicker than it takes to read through it if you think more about the concept of each layer you're adding than the technical details of each layer.

Nice work!

[EnglishBob]

I shoot everything in Raw so that will be my route, hopefully I will have time to go through the entire nights shoot properly this coming week-end.