Workshops: Workshop Thumbnail View

Register

Side-by-Side Top-Bottom
Actual Image

Volcanic Aurora Boreal (58)
fredi Silver Note Writer [C: 0 W: 0 N: 33] (200)
Seeing that there is a lack or aurora photos here on TN and that the response on my previously posted aurora photo was very good, I will post another one in a different setting.

This photo shows northern lights as seen from the Námaskarđ geothermal area near Krafla in North Iceland. The volcanically active area has numerous fumaroles and boiling mud pools. At the time when the photo was taken there was no wind and it was almost full moon. Going out there I was only expecting to make beautiful night-time photos of the fumaroles using long exposures and letting the full moon light up the area, but just before getting back into the car a very intense display of green to purple northern lights started up very suddenly, and large parts of the sky bursted into colorful and fast flickering flames. After shooting a few photos straight up I ran back to the fumaroles where I managed to capture a few photos like the one above before the aurora faded out completely.

More photos
Altered Image #1

fredi Silver Note Writer [C: 0 W: 0 N: 33] (200)
Imitating nighttime to the human eye
Edited by:peter_stoeckl Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1629 W: 287 N: 3646] (10219)
Taking long exposure pictures at moonlight night time inevitably delivers results that look quite unusual to the spectator in their colourful sunlight and daytime appeance as the human eye unusally does not record any reflected colours of landscape at moonlight, while the aurora boralis will certainly appear very colourful due to its sufficient brightness to activate the colour sensitive cells of the human retina.

I have tried this workshop to imitate an impression that might be looking more realistic to human perception - a guess only, of course, as I never have seen the phenomenon contributed by Fredi.

Photoshop Elements
1. Brightness reduced - 50
2. Contrast increased + 20
3. Saturation of red and yellow strongly reduced to make the landscape appear "grey nighttime", saturation of green slightly increased.

Step 3 is the essential one, and only the person who has witnessed the scene will find out the most realistic settings of selective desaturation.

Best regards,
Peter