I find neon quite interesting to shoot and have had more than a couple of attempts at it. Some thoughts:
Getting the exposure right is quite easy - meter up close to a strip. Red seems to be good. If you try and meter from where you are shooting, the shot will likely be quite over exposed.
Sharp focus tends to give you very thin, sharp neon which doesn't translate so well in images. Soft focus, out of focus and actively changing focus during the exposure can help a huge amount to give the visual 'bloom' that your eye sees but the camera ignores. With an SLR and a long exposure on a tripod, you can manually adjust the focus through the shot to good effect.
Neon also tends to be quite static - zooming through the exposure can also be effective. Particularly interesting is varying the zoom, and the focus at the same time. Certainly can be fun to play around with and see what you get.
I was thinking of this effect too. I reckon another important trick is you're gonna hafta find the right neon light to go with it. How about the "O" in the Open sign. :P
I was thinking of this effect too. I reckon another important trick is you're gonna hafta find the right neon light to go with it. How about the "O" in the Open sign. :P
Yup - the right subject is certainly a big part of it too.
Post-shot Adjustments may be made to your image in a photo editing program, so long as the modification is applied to the whole image. This includes levels, b&w conversion, hue/saturation, sizing/rotating, curves and cropping (or their non-Photoshop equivalents).
this means it CAN be done afterwards, it is applied to the whole image?
Post-shot Adjustments may be made to your image in a photo editing program, so long as the modification is applied to the whole image. This includes levels, b&w conversion, hue/saturation, sizing/rotating, curves and cropping (or their non-Photoshop equivalents).
this means it CAN be done afterwards, it is applied to the whole image?
nope...it's a filter: "However, no effects filters may be applied to your image, with the exception of Noise and Gaussian blur, the two of which are allowed. Any filter permitted by this rule must be applied uniformly to the entire image"
Posterising and similar effects are only allowed in Advanced editing challenges, and Neon is only Basic editing.
And note that even then, using any kind of filter that turns something recognizable as a photograph into something that most would consider "digital art" will likely get your picture disqualified.
And Pedro is correct when he points out that no effects filters may be used in Basic Editing challenges.
Posterising and similar effects are only allowed in Advanced editing challenges, and Neon is only Basic editing.
And note that even then, using any kind of filter that turns something recognizable as a photograph into something that most would consider "digital art" will likely get your picture disqualified.
And Pedro is correct when he points out that no effects filters may be used in Basic Editing challenges.
Hmm - so we are allowed to convert an image from 16 bit, to 8 bit, but not 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1 bit ?
Like everything in image editing, there are more than one way to posterise an image. You can posterise an image using the basic editing rules - but you can't do it the easy way with the filter that's designed to do it.
