Capturing sunset lighting with moonrise without blowing out highlights

I am finding it quite challenging to make sure I capture both the colors of the sunset sky, the last light of sun on the landscape all the while ensuring the moon stands out but isn’t blown out. Ironically, I find it easier to do this a little after sunset when there is one less thing to worry about in processing (i.e. sunlight and shade from the setting sun). Of course this is easiest to do when in the daytime and sun more than 5 degrees above the horizon but such instances happen rarely given how the light from the moon works.

Would like some feedback on how I could ensure maximum details show in this picture while not blowing out any of the highlights. Also uploaded two versions of my edits. Thank you!
IMG_6277.CR2 (25.8 MB)


This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.

9 Likes

Hi @goflydeep,

Nice — but a tricky one.
Here is one way to “develop” it:

Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

Stunning picture! I think you did well with the edits shown here – I love the muted colours, IMO both have been graded with good taste. It will be interesting to see how others do :slight_smile:

Regarding the details, in my opinion it sometimes makes even sense to blur parts of the image a little bit to give it a sense of depth and make the sharper parts pop out a bit more. I’ll experiment with this tomorrow on this image to show what I meant.

With Filmulator, it’s very easy to make the moon stand out reasonably while preserving the details in the landscape below.

Unfortunately, though, having the foreground so clearly shown actually makes it look rather mundane and boring to my eye, without much mystique.

  • Auto CA Correct 1
  • Exposure comp +5/6
  • Film Area 116
  • Drama 100
  • White Clipping Point 0.532
  • Shadow Brightness 144
  • Highlight Brightness 672
1 Like

Thanks - I did spend a considerable amount of time. I love that it looks artistic and I understand that’s what most photography is for - but I often struggle with replicating exactly what my eyes see. Unless I am shooting in broad daylight in sunny 16 conditions where the light is uniform and it’s easy to edit in a sense that I know the sky is blue and white balance is always at Daylight settings. So all I do is find a tone curve and even that often works well just on Auto settings.

I look forward to seeing your edits.

Good point. Do you think in that case my highlights, as in the sunlit hills in the background, sky and moon could be brighter in the image? To make them “stand out” as you suggest?

My attempt -

IMG_6277-moon-and-sunrise-Goflydeep-V2-S-sRGB.xmp (56.7 KB)
(sunset not sunrise!)

3 Likes

Thanks for posting
darktable 4.0


IMG_6277_01.CR2.xmp (16.6 KB)

4 Likes

Thanks for sharing.
My first try in GIMP. I may have to revisit it - I am sure I can do better!

1 Like


IMG_6277.pfi (85.1 KB)

Hi !
At 20:25 it is perhaps the blue hour. My vision of the moment.

1 Like


IMG_6277.CR2.xmp (13.7 KB)

3 Likes

A heavy handed edit, darktable 4.0


IMG_6277.CR2.xmp (43.9 KB)

1 Like

Hi,
This is my edit in DT. I list the steps here as it may help people new to filmic.

  1. I applied daylight white balance to capture the color how it would have been captured on color slide film (the true color?)
  2. I applied 0.34 haze removal to just the moon using a drawn circle mask with feathering and blur for an invisible transition.
  3. I used filmic auto tune levels, but the white relative exposure slider overshot so I pulled it back a little to put the color back in the whole of the moon.
  4. I used the tone equalizer module to brighten the foreground as this is what you seemed to prefer. In my first attempt I had darkened the foreground because it distracted me from the moon.
  5. I activated the local contrast module to default values. I typically do this with many images.
  6. I returned to filmic and redid the auto tune levels and backed off the white relative exposure slider again.
  7. I applied sharpening first using the diffuse or sharpen modules demosaicing sharpening preset (AA filter) and then did additional sharpening using the default values of the sharpen module.
  8. I used the default values of the denoise (profiled) module. This is my default denoising method for most images.
  9. I used the pre-set for basic colorfullness from the color balance RGB module. This is fairly standard for me when processing an image to get the colors I expect.
  10. I returned to filmic and adjusted the contrast slider to 1.400 to give the contrast level that I wanted.

But mine is not my favourite edit here. There are numerous interpretations and it is hard to know what the original scene looked liked without being there.

1 Like

Interesting Play, thanks for posting!
I used haze removal and a local spot with tone mapping here.


IMG_6277_RT-1.jpg.out.pp3 (16.4 KB)

1 Like

Thanks for the input. I like how the moon is so prominent in your version. The time stamp on the camera isn’t accurate but the photo was taken just 5 minutes or so before sunset. So the hills on the back which are also higher are still lit with red sunlight from the setting sun as is the tops of the hills on the left. Rest of the valley and lower hills are in the shadow. And the colors of twilight had begun to popup but I honestly can’t recall how vivid they were now.

The timestamp on the camera isn’t accurate, but the shot was taken just 5 minutes or so before sunset. As such, the hills in the far background (the higher ones on the right) were bathed in red sunlight as were the tops of the hills to the left. I do recall a twilight glow of red and orange starting to show in the sky but do not recall if it was very vivid or more muted.

The haze removal tool works very well for my underwater shots so I used it on your moon, but wanted to limit its effect to jut the moon. Not having any idea of the color I chose daylight white balance. However, the saturation or vibrance might need lifting in my edit. Maybe even the contrast could be lifted.

Very nice picture! Where was it taken?

This is my version using darktable 4.0.0


IMG_6277.CR2.xmp (14.6 KB)

1 Like

Northern California, East Bay Interior Valleys near Livermore if you are familiar with the area. The taller hills to the right seen in the image make the western border of the Central Valley

1 Like