Paint with light

[JemC]

Hi all

I thought I would have a go at painting with light. Never done this before but here is my attempt, I am quietly pleased with the result I got, however I know there is room for improvement so I will be doing some more,
Please feel free to comment or critique, I based the setup on something similar that I saw in a magazine so no points for that.

Regards
James

[chauncey]

To quote Strother Martain, "What we have here is a failure to communicate".
Are you suggesting that you took several images while moving the lighting sources and then blended those images together?
I'm seeing a lot of errors/artifacts in the blending process similar to what might occur during a somewhat less than adequate focus-stack process.

[JemC]

Hi Chauncey
You are spot on with your observation,
these are all area's that I know I need to improve/pay more attention to,
it was 4 images in total and each one was lit by a torch for a few seconds each then stacked in Photoshop (not easy to learn for me)

Regards
James

[chauncey]

I figured as much. Contrary to what PS would have you believe, that stacking process is not exactly a "plug and play" scenario. The photo-merge process can often be a crap-shoot...pun intended.
Assuming you arranged the images in layers>selected all layers>auto arranged (numerous options here, all with different results, and different outcomes...even when done the same way over again)>auto blend(two options, again with different results).

What I do in situations such as yours is take parts of the original images and blend them in to the final image to the point that all the artifacts are gone, it pure cut and blend work.

[JemC]

Hi Chauncey
Thanks for your comments, however I think my knowledge on Photoshop is somewhat behind yours, I know what you say sounds reasonably simple/easy but I would not even know where to start in trying to take parts of the images and blending into a final image, if you have a spare minute is there any chance you could give a layman's term description on the procedure I would be very grateful

Regards and Thanks
James

[chauncey]

Okay...using selections>with all five (one flattened final image and the four source images) opened>use the lasso tool in a source image to select an area that you would want to correct in your final image>use the move to move that selection into your final image>repeat process until all artifacts are covered up...
You could use the clone stamp tool, between images, the same way.

But, before you resort to any of that...try different methods on your original blend options.

[Wavelength]

To my untrained eyes it looks nice.... I have seen similar image even before
Nice try
Regards