Hot Sunrise From Mercury
The picture is intended to depict a view of the Sun from the planet Mercury which is the closest of the Planets to the Sun. I wanted to achieve this image entirely photographically from my own images. No digital painting and no planet or star images from others like NASA. Landscape Image 3 main layers were used. First for the landscape I used a picture taken from the side of the Caldera Colorada volcano, near Masdache, Lanzarote. There is a 45 minute walk round the base of the cone. One side is an unusual rich red, made up from cinder, rich in iron oxide. This image was taken with an 8mm fisheye. Processing was first in Camera RAW to adjust exposure and increase Clarity and Vibrance. I used Topast Adjust boost preset to enhance colours and detail. The blue sky was removed with a selection. The image below is the original image after processing
Sun Image The next image was the Sun. I followed an online tutoriaI step by step although it was based on an earlier version of Photoshop. This was quite complex and rarther than go over it again here, if you are interested see http://www.devppl.com/forum/photoshop-tutorial-creating-a-sun-fire-planet-ss-part-3-vt2534.html One point I discovered after research was that to use the elliptical marquee tool to draw a perfect circle from the centre requires that the smallest part of the drawing has to be started before holding down the shift and alt keys to constrain to a circle. Holding down the shift and alt keys at the start doesn’t work The image below is the Sun after edits.
Stars Image The last image was a combination of various Star field images taken on various trips to take star trails. 3 images were used and pasted together in layers using the lighten layer blend mode so each image added to the previous one rather than overlaying it to provide a denser star field. I used some Photoshop Actions called Astronomy Tools to brighten the stars, enhance the colours and add some star effects. The image below is the star field after edits.
The star field was used as a base and selections of the landscape and planet pasted in. The image below is the final result.
Edwin Jones
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