Solar eclipse photo editing
Discussion
I was lucky enough to shoot the solar eclipse in the US last year and am finally getting around to doing some editing for some decent wall prints.
I got some shots that I'm very proud of, but some look better on screen than print, particularly those with the sunlight 'peeking' through behind the moon, i.e. where I've got a very bright region but the rest is close to darkness. I want to brighten up the rest of the circumference a little, but don't know what I'm doing in GIMP well enough to achieve this! Any advice?
When I first uploaded low res versions to Google Photo on the day, funnily enough it's made a reasonable fist of automatically doing what I'm trying to achieve (presumably when I reduced the res and JPEG did its thing, though it had gone a bit far). I want to achieve a similar effect, but without compromising the clarity and shape of the 'peek' and the magenta fringing around it. Simply playing with brightness and contrast in GIMP is not giving me what I want, so there's obviously more to it, but I'm hoping it could be relatively simple edits. I do have access to Photoshop (at work) if needs be, but am trying to get these sorted today since I'm snowed in!
This is the kind of image I'm working with (I want to keep the 'peek' as is, but brighten the circumference):
This is what my initial image res shrink (and perhaps Google Photo auto enhancements?) achieved on the same image (but not cropped). It's gone a bit further than I want and damaged the integrity of the 'peek', but gives an impression of that I'm trying to achieve:
I got some shots that I'm very proud of, but some look better on screen than print, particularly those with the sunlight 'peeking' through behind the moon, i.e. where I've got a very bright region but the rest is close to darkness. I want to brighten up the rest of the circumference a little, but don't know what I'm doing in GIMP well enough to achieve this! Any advice?
When I first uploaded low res versions to Google Photo on the day, funnily enough it's made a reasonable fist of automatically doing what I'm trying to achieve (presumably when I reduced the res and JPEG did its thing, though it had gone a bit far). I want to achieve a similar effect, but without compromising the clarity and shape of the 'peek' and the magenta fringing around it. Simply playing with brightness and contrast in GIMP is not giving me what I want, so there's obviously more to it, but I'm hoping it could be relatively simple edits. I do have access to Photoshop (at work) if needs be, but am trying to get these sorted today since I'm snowed in!
This is the kind of image I'm working with (I want to keep the 'peek' as is, but brighten the circumference):
This is what my initial image res shrink (and perhaps Google Photo auto enhancements?) achieved on the same image (but not cropped). It's gone a bit further than I want and damaged the integrity of the 'peek', but gives an impression of that I'm trying to achieve:
Here's a compilation of shots from the day. With this I am struggling to increase the brightness on some of the partial eclipses without affecting the blackness of the background (or the transition between green and black). So I've largely opted for lowest common denominator of brightness and brought the brighter ones down to meet the others. I haven't quite got it right yet, nor the spacing, but again am hoping this will make a good print. I have opted not to try to sharpen the partial eclipses nor remove the ghosting as I think it adds a bit of character. Some shots like this look a bit too perfect as if they've been drawn rather than photographed. I am contemplating making the partial eclipses black and white to eradicate the green (caused by welding glass over the lens during partial phase), but perhaps it would be a bit dull without the colour? Any tips welcomed again.
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