Waxing Crescent Moon With Shadow + Edit

[JimFox]

This is the same Waxing Crescent Moon I posted yesterday but combined with the shadowed part of the moon. While I was shooting to expose the Crescent shape properly, I also bracketed down and overexposed to pull detail out of the shaded area of the moon. This is probably about 4 stops of exposure. I also noticed that the shaded part of the moon took on a blue cast, I didn't add that. I read somewhere it's being lit up by light reflected off the earth, not sure if that's true. I also left the shaded part of the moon slightly soft because that's how it was captured. If need be I could go back in and sharpen it, but I thought to leave that part of the moon look as close to what I had captured.

In the end I then used a layer mask and slid the 2 parts together in Photoshop. I left the stars in it to help give it some context against that black background.

I have seen others do this, and found it cool. This probably borders on Digital Art, but shooting Astro probably more then any other genre of photography takes some creative license since it's showing us views that we typically can't see by the naked eye.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

#1 - Original

#2 - Edit per Alans suggestion

 

[AlanLichty]

Interesting processing. I like the concept - but - at least to my eyes it looks like the shadowed side of the moon is just a smidge smaller in diameter than the lit side and my eyes keep wandering to the discontinuity. Maybe expand that layer a bit and soften the edge to the illuminated side layer?

 

[Mike Lewis]

Great result! Really like this, very nice detail in both portions, and yet remains 'natural' looking. And yes, that is primarily Earthshine illuminating the dark portion of the moon.

ML

 

[JimFox]

Interesting processing. I like the concept - but - at least to my eyes it looks like the shadowed side of the moon is just a smidge smaller in diameter than the lit side and my eyes keep wandering to the discontinuity. Maybe expand that layer a bit and soften the edge to the illuminated side layer?

Thanks Alan, it is interesting and was interesting to put together.

They should be the same size, or so I thought. Are you seeing this in the upper right corner? The lower left matches up well, but I can see where maybe it looks like in the upper right it's off a hair?

 

[JimFox]

Great result! Really like this, very nice detail in both portions, and yet remains 'natural' looking. And yes, that is primarily Earthshine illuminating the dark portion of the moon.

ML

Thanks so much Mike, it was a fun little project to do. My biggest issue with it was that the shaded area and the lit area when combined just totally looked like I had pasted 2 photos together. My key to making it look natural after playing with it for a bit, was to use a layer mask the feathered the shaded area very gently as it connects to the Crescent Moon. The moment I did that, it all of a sudden looked perfect. Before that I kept increasing and decreasing the brightness of the shaded part to try and make it look natural, and it never did. So I am glad I stumbled across that idea.

 

[AlanLichty]

Thanks Alan, it is interesting and was interesting to put together.

They should be the same size, or so I thought. Are you seeing this in the upper right corner? The lower left matches up well, but I can see where maybe it looks like in the upper right it's off a hair?

Yeah - it's the upper right that catches my attention.