Mineral Moon

I have always loved the moon, since the fisrt times I was learning photography basics. A few years ago I have seen a beautiful image of the moon with very nice colors, much different from the usual monochromatic version (bw, yellow, orange, reddish, white) which is everywhere.

This kind of processing it is called "Mineral Moon", because it is aimed at extracting colors which are (or at least should be!) already present on lunar surface, the colors of its mineral composition. In practice several saturation filters are applied to the image, few of them with extreme settings.

 

Toughest step is taking a sharp photo of the moon, because a very long focal length is needed and very good weather condition.

 

 

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EXIF and Technique:

 

Moon (Milan 2021):

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Canon EF 100-400

Canon Extender 2x

800mm - 1/500s - f/11 - ISO 400

16 shots

 

 

Background stars (Sardinia 2017):

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Canon EF 16-35

16mm - 20s - f2.8 - ISO 6400

 

 

Workflow:

Basic corrections in ACR and conversion in TIFF

Pre-processed in PIPP

Stacked in AutoStakkert (16 shots)

Sharpen using RegiStax

 

Processed in Photoshop in 8 layers:

1. Basic adjustments of light/contrast/wb

2. Colors extraction and calibration

3. Colors saturation first step

4. Colors saturation second step

5. High pass sharpening

6. Glow and Orton with Tonality Masks Landscape Panel

7. Selective corrections with Tonality Masks Core Panel

8. Background stars (basic adjustments)

 

 

__________________________

 

Luca Libralato Photography

 

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Processed with Tonality Masks Panel

 

 

Done