you've come a long way baby...

I am posting this collage because sometimes a 'vision' is years in the making!

I revisited this 2013 RAW image (1) today - one that that did not seem to 'work' even after I had spent 40 minutes editing it in 2013. (2)
White Balance is tricky with star images & this set of images really shows just how wrong I got it in 2013!
With a few more years experience under my belt, the global edit (3) took just 5 minutes in LR & I was much happier, so I decided to see what it would look like if I then gave it a 15 minute 'seeing to' in Photoshop! Much closer to what I 'saw' in my head as I was shooting the original!! Yay - a long journey, but the image now makes me very happy!

(1) sooc RAW is always washy & bland
(2) a LR edit which missed the colour wagon completely!
(3) a better balanced start
(4) some masking and a touch of HDR... now iall that it needs is a new crop & then boom!

uncropped final is at https://365project.org/ltodd/365/2017-04-28

[Marnie Sullivan]

Boom indeed! Learning the photographic art both shooting and process is a journey of lifelong learning and these shots certainly document your journey and skills progression. Well done. The last shot is amazing and I aspire to be able to create a night sky shot as good as this....though I fear that is a long way off in the future. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Sally Ings]

Thanks for sharing this. So interesting to see how processing can benefit a shot.

[Lyn Todd]

@marnies yes! it seems all too easy to feel discouraged along the way when we don't achieve the 'goal' we are aiming for despite giving it 'everything we have got' at the time. This is an example of it taking soo much longer than I thought it would to get right, and is a reminder to 'hang on in there' along the journey. :)

[katy]

So impressive and thanks so much for sharing the process and giving hope to us all!

[kali]

super. so what happened to the sandbox?

[Lyn Todd]

@kali66 on 365?

[kali]

yeah we had emails before you went to Africa then it died lol

[Lyn Todd]

@kali66 I was waiting for Mike to kick it off.. LOL!

[kali]

@mikegifford you hear that?!

[Jane Pittenger]

Favulous sharing of the process and a great end

[Carole G]

Thanks for sharing, there is so much to learn!

[Jennifer]

wow, thanks for sharing this. Gives me hope :-)

[Mike Gifford]

@ltodd @kali66 I'm all ears! I thought Lyn might finally say something now that she is back from the wilds! Ha! This is just as an Artist Challenge is coming to an end. Since I'm the poster I can "make a plug" for our Sandbox using the AC theme. I'll need to review who was also willing to play along. Any thoughts on this?

[Taffy]

This is such a great learning opportunity for us all. I can relate particularly because of going back through files from 2013 after the computer drive crash. I surprise myself in improving on photos that I had given up on or at the time, thought were fine. This collage shows so clearly how processing reflects an ever continuing process of learning to use the tools effectively.

[Delwyn Barnett]

Very interesting to see this.

[Debbie]

ahhhh..... I can feel you contentment:) A great demonstration to show the benefits of editing.