Ligth painting

[readingr]

Last night I sat to read a photo mag and saw an article and thought I had to try this.

What do you think?

Roger

[Speed]

Cool effect. I've read articles on this, so I know how it's done, but the details vary (shutter speeds, light sources, etc.) So give us the details on this setup...

[readingr]

Speed,

Now thats hard, I tried loads last night, but I think these are about 4 seconds at F8 on a Canon Powershot Pro 1, well the photo its saved under was set at that which is the green spiral lights. The lighting was from a single maglite torch which moved around the bottle to get the lighting.

I liked the pattern in the bottle so moved the torch up to get repetitive patterns. Found three which came on top of each other in PP which gave the pattern.

There are about 7-8 photos combined to get the shot and post processed using PSE 2.About 30 taken, well 32 to be exact.

Roger

[I_Fly]

That's interesting. What were you using to color the light? And what magazine was the article in? Just curious.

As an aside. How do you go about merging the photos? I've read about this process, I think it's also used in astrophotography, but don't know enough about PS or PSE to figure out how the images are merged.

[readingr]

That's interesting. What were you using to color the light? And what magazine was the article in? Just curious.

As an aside. How do you go about merging the photos? I've read about this process, I think it's also used in astrophotography, but don't know enough about PS or PSE to figure out how the images are merged.

The easy bit first: Magazine is Digital Photo in the UK one of the best I've come across on digital photography in the UK.

How its done:

1 take loads of pics using tripod without moving camera or target or zooming in or out so that all the images will be the same size and composition.

2. Light the item from back x 3 or was it 4 (can't remember), top, just the top (left, and right)

3. take a torch with the bulb showing and circle the target to get the light.

Post Processing: This is relatively easy and open to experimenting
4. Merge all the bottle photos by dragging all the photos you want into one image

5. Select each layer and set the blend mode to lighten

6. Get rid of the layers that you don't like

7. Carry out any adjustments you may need to do at this point

8. Flatten the image

9. Now move the light image into the new image

10. Add a hue sat layer and tie it to the light layer (select the hugh sat layer which is on top of the light layer and hold ALT key and move cursor over the edge of the two and it will come up with a twin circle icon. Then click.

11. adjust the hue to set the colour of the light

12. adjust again for any items that need doing

13. Clean up the image

14. Flatten

15. Save

Thats all from memory as I've left the magazine in work.

Hope that helps

Roger

[I_Fly]

Thanks Roger,

You've given me enough to try out!

I think I've seen that magazine at some of the bigger bookstores here in the US.

[Mr Yuck]

Light painting is quite fun

Another idea is to "sign" the places you've been by writing "Your Initials + Was Here"

if you have a short name or a 30+ second shutter speed, replace "your initials" with "your name"