Nightswimming

[dankearl]

Another night photo from Kauai.
This one is heavily processed. I processed the sky and the land and Ocean separately and put back together.

30 sec., iso3200, f4, 16mm, D800

DSC_0420kauaibp.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=134522&stc=1&d=1384041638)

[Don Nelson]

The bioluminescene of the south pacific waves always fascinated me - and you've captured it well.
I'd be temped to PS in some of the missing sections.
Well done. I like the colors in the sky.

[Diane Miller]

The separate processing isn't obvious to me -- the colors are a great match -- well done. The lighter parts of the FG look like light from the Milky Way!

The curvature of the luminescent waves may be due to swells, but it gives the impression of barrel distortion. What would you think about correcting it?

[dankearl]

Diane,
you are correct on the distortion, I used the very bottom focus point at 16mm and that is what happens.
I do not know the fix.
The separate PP is, I Processed the photo concentrating only on the sky. I worked on it until I was satisfied, cropped just sky, then
took that and the OP, where I processed the water and land, not worrying about the sky at all.
I overlaid the two and blended in the cropped sky, which sort of doubled the stars and the light in the sky.
Being a complete PS novice, this was my way of doing this, I have really no idea of what I am doing,
But it seemed to work.
any tip on correcting the distortion is much appreciated.

[Don Nelson]

Dan
Its easiest if the exif data is present
look at Filter->Lens correction. choose automatic
If you don't have lens exif data present (or if PS does not have the camera/lens correction for that combo) then look at custom tab
You'll figure it out if you go there....

Frankly the image is so dark that its barely noticeable.

[Diane Miller]

Don gave where its found in PS, but it's best to do lens corrections in the RAW processor. LR or ACR are excellent -- others may have it too. If you have cropped when you go into PS it won't be able to get it right.

in LR, near the bottom of the Develop panels, Lens Corrections > Profile, check Enable Profile Corrections. It will fix all sorts of lens quirks you didn't know you had. Do Chromatic Aberration too while you're there. Then go to the Manual tab and use the Distortion slider if you still have some barrel or pincushion distortion. You can do rotation and perspective at the same time, if needed. Very slick.

[Lyle Gruby]

This is definitely my favorite of your night shots so far. That water color is magical. I've tried the lens distortion both PS and LR and both work, but I've never compared the 2.

[Diane Miller]

I didn't state it well enough -- it's the Auto correction that won't be able to work correctly if you are in PS with a cropped image. The interface in that dialog needs to be fixed.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Love how the ocean glows. DOF seems to have been just too shallow with the sky seemingly OOF Dan?
Every time we shoot at night we learn more, so keep at it and you'll improve rapidly.

As is - I would crop to portrait from the LHS to lose the dark part and only focus on the RHS with the luminous ocean as the base.