This was taken out in Joshua Tree National Park at about 3 AM. I took the winding dirt road out to Desert Queen Mine and found this shot while walking along a ridge that ran along the trail. 30 minute exposure at f/11. Color in the trees and brush was added with a handheld spotlight and set of colored gels. Slight detail was added to the rock formation in the right-hand side of the frame with a few passes of a dim flashlight.
The pale glow in the distance, behind the hills, came from the Coachella Valley. I was worried about what it would do to the shot, but it served to illuminate the clouds that passed overhead near the end of the exposure. In addition to the star trails, I believe that brightest trail was from Jupiter (which was supposed to be visible that night).
Post-processing included adjustment layers for Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Brightness/Contrast. Also cropped to remove distracting elements. Ran through Noise Ninja. No USM, but used Bicubic Sharper when sizing it down.
Statistics
Place: 34 out of 287 Avg (all users): 6.3702 Avg (commenters): 7.5938 Avg (participants): 6.2903 Avg (non-participants): 6.4082 Views since voting: 2031 Views during voting: 522 Votes: 289 Comments: 39 Favorites: 3 (view)
Suspicions hit you hard here. People didn't believe it wasn't processed within basic editing rules. Very undeserved score.
Huh? If people didn't believe it wasn't processed within basic editing rules then they would believe it was processed legally within basic editing. If that's the case then there wouldn't be any suspicions to "hit" anyone.
Suspicions hit you hard here. People didn't believe it wasn't processed within basic editing rules. Very undeserved score. The image is fantastic and well planned. From the description I can see a lot of work went into it.
Wonder if these really have these weird colors or if you put some light on them? Maybe the explanation is in your comment - looking forward to see the explanation when the challenge is over.
I recognize the effort that you put in this but the final outcome, while above average, is nothing really to say hooray about, just not that aesthetically pleasing to me. Think the sky needed to have more star trails or something just to make it go pop. Anyway, got a 6 from me, like I said, it´s above average.
I really like this shot alot. The colors the streaks in the sky. But I feel like I have to lean to the left to get it straight. I realize the horizon in the back is correct, but it just seems odd to me to have to do that. I still give you a 7. Nice fit for the challenge.
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