Timeline for bringing layers out of bright moon
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 1, 2018 at 19:42 | comment | added | BobT | In the future, expose the moon as if it were a sunlit landscape at high noon... Sunny F16 rule will work. Any terrestrial moonlit landscapes will need to be separately exposed as a double exposure or combined in a photo editing program if you want them both in the same image. | |
| Feb 1, 2018 at 19:36 | comment | added | Michael C | As for how much can be recovered, part of it depends on how much the original rendering is lightened to try and show details in the black sky... In general you are correct that there usually isn't much detail at more than two stops past what is rendered with most in-camera jpeg engines. But a shot of the moon against a black sky is not typical. Some jpeg engines (ALO, Active-D, etc.) (or default "auto" settings of raw converters) will attempt to brighten the whole thing as much as possible, which blows the highlights out even more than would otherwise be the case. | |
| Feb 1, 2018 at 19:31 | comment | added | Michael C | @Cory In your answer you reference "One where the moon is properly exposed, and another where everything else is properly exposed." That's pretty much the only situation with the moon where one would need to use layers because the brightness of the two exposure would need to be so disparate as to not fit in a single raw file. The brightest and dimmest values of the illuminated parts of the surface of the moon easily fit within a single raw image file when properly exposed. | |
| Feb 1, 2018 at 19:22 | comment | added | OnBreak. | @MichaelClark - I mention the -2 in terms of what a RAW processor is capable of with a single shot. I read the q assuming a moon that is incredibly overexposed and probably blown. Do you know of any way to recover more than -2 stops from a single raw file? | |
| Feb 1, 2018 at 19:18 | comment | added | Michael C | If we are talking about the moon versus the landscape under the moon, the difference is going to be considerably more than 2 stops. But the way the question reads to me is that we are talking about the darkest and lightest parts of the moon. | |
| Feb 1, 2018 at 17:39 | comment | added | OnBreak. | @flolilolilo, I agree with you in probably 99% of shots. Mapping a moon at -2 back into a shot at 0 is probably best done using a graduated ND style of mask. Easily done in just lightroom with the single RAW. But, I've no knowledge of OP's post processing prowess and wanted to leave room to wiggle on the how to accomplish the final image. | |
| Feb 1, 2018 at 17:08 | comment | added | flolilo | In my experience, RAW->JPEG->HDR is unnnecessary - it is far easier to simply boost/lower the highlights/shadows via the RAW. That is: if all the photos have the same exposure. If you have exposure-bracketed shots, then tone-mapping does make sense (if something is clipping at all, that is). | |
| Feb 1, 2018 at 15:53 | history | answered | OnBreak. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |