Taken at 2 am in Acadia, Maine last May. Nothing beats the calm and serenity staring into space and enjoying the sound of the waves
The light on the trees was from a car passing by on the top - perhaps the only time I was grateful 
Thanks @Ed_McGuirk and @João_Ferrão - i agree that the RLC cobble stones needed to be toned down . Also cropped a little off the right
Thanks Igor @Igor_Doncov - sorry for the poor labelling - this latest is V3 - Blue sky and unchanged water - should be darker and bluer perhaps
What technical feedback would you like if any?
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
How do the 2 exposure blend ?
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Sky - 20 secs . f2.8 iso 4500
Water - 160 seconds - iso 2200
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A classic location that works great for the Milky Way. To your question about the exposures and the blend thereof. The sky looks great, I like the colors and the WB. I could perhaps see a little more contrast in the sky, but that is a matter of personal taste, as presented it is within reasonable bounds. Regarding the land exposure, I suspect some folks may comment that this does not look like a night image. But the trees and Otter Cliff do look like they would if illuminated by a car. In that sense this is what it is, effectively a light painted image, and not a nightscape intended to look like it would in full dark. Nothing wrong with that, to look like full darkness was not your intent.
In the land exposure, I love the way the long exposure water looks along the cobble shoreline, it’s one of my favorite things in the image. My primary nit in the land exposure is that the luminosity of the cobbles in the LRC away from the shoreline seems a bit bright, even for an illuminated scene. Some burning of those rocks would help balance tonality IMO.
Regarding the blend, it’s all about horizons. The waterline to the left of the galactic core seems to have a very slight halo. I cannot zoom in close enough to be sure, but it looks like there might be one. Multiple repeated passes of feather burning at very low opacity (10%), can probably smooth that away. The horizon at the treeline is done pretty well in general. There is some very, very slight patchiness in the trees at the extreme right, but it’s barely noticeable, and a nitpick that probably doesn’t deserve to be mentioned.
Hey @Karl_Zuzarte
Great milky way shot, the sea line creates a leading line the that galactic core, very well composed.
Im with @Ed_McGuirk on the rock side not appearing to be a night shot but I like it like it is. It’s part light painting as you said that car passed.
The only thing that I would change its that bright spot on the tide rocks on the bottom part. It draws the eye a bit to much maybe.
Other than that it’s a great record. Seaside milky way is something near impossible here in Portugal, to many coastal big cities.
Thanks for sharing,
Cheers
I prefer the first image being displayed which, in reading the posts, appears to be the rework and not the original. But I’m not sure.
The re-do is the darker rocks
Hi Karl,
You had a nice star field this night and great luck on the passing car light. It looks like a slight moon rise to lookers left of the frame. The composition works well for me.
I would consider saturating the colour in the sky a little more as it appears that the colour in the water is a bit more saturated than the sky.
For example I downloaded the image and used the eye dropper tool in photoshop and many parts the blues in the water are at around a 30% saturation level in the colour tab in PS. The similar blues in the sky are at 10 - 15%. I did a quick mask of the sky and boost the saturation of the blues using a hue/saturation layer and the sky seemed to pop and have more synergy with the water.
This is very useful Nathan @Nathan_Klein - thanks - Only I am a PS novice
Would you be kind enough to list the steps for me ? Also post back your edited image if you dont mind
Based on your assessment, I masked the sky and increased the blues some - certainly better
Hi Karl,
No problems.
The first screen shot shows the saturation level of the selected colour. Simply choose the eye dropper tool and click on the image. You will need to ensure that you’re clicking on a pixel layer not an adjustment layer. See the color tab for the saturation level in the upper right.
For the mask as its only saturation adjustments you don’t need to be very precise with the mask. See the next screen shot to see the masks created with the lasso tool.
I balanced the saturation to taste. Essentially I decreased the saturation the cyans and blues in the foreground and boosted the cyans and blues in the sky. I was looking to deemphasise the water slightly so the eye is more drawn to the sky.
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I like the direction that Nathan has taken his rework. The idea of de-saturating the water, and increasing saturation in the sky is brilliant.
@Karl_Zuzarte the darker rocks in your rework look good to me, again darkening the rocks lets more attention fall on the sky and cliff.
That is very generous of you Nathan @Nathan_Klein to do this for me.
Essentially you used the color picker simply to see the level of saturation
Then you adjusted the blue in the sky and water separately - correct ?
At least I did this and came close to what you got - I used selective color
Once again Nathan - many thanks!
Karl
As in all things Photoshop there are many ways to do more or less the same thing.
A TK Action based approach is use the TK Color Masks to select Blue, or the Blue Cyan range. This lets you select colors as a mask, and then output the slection to a PS Hue Saturation adjustment layer. From there you can either increase or decrease the saturation slider. You could do one for the sky (increase), and separate one for the water (decrease).
I like Nathan’s rework of the sky but would have left the water saturated as in the very top image. I’m also not sure that a reflection has less saturated colors than what’s being reflected.
Hi Karl,
No worries. Your description is correct of my approach.
What I like about the eye dropper tool is that its objective. Sometimes colour plays tricks on the eye and some colours appear more saturated than what they are. The eye dropper gives a numerical factor to make sure I’m not taking things too far or more likely it tells me that I might be able to push it a bit further.
I agree with @Igor_Doncov; reflections tend to be darker, and darker is often more saturated. Not always, but often. With that said, I think any of these three are spectacular images.
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