Moon Madness

Yesterday's moon shots were successful, but it's amazing at what a more seasoned PhotoShop user can do to improve upon a "decent" shot.  Here is what he taught me today.

PhotoShop has some basic sharpening tools, and I used them to a small degree.  What I didn't know was that a completely different technique could also be used to achieve a sharpening effect.  The alternative approach works with a copy of the original, which then has a High Pass filter applied.  The art to this technique is knowing how much Radius to give the filter.  This one was given around three pixels.  The result is a grey wash.  But if you use a Hard Light layer option on that High Pass processed layer, the result is striking -- way better (or at least easier) than traditional sharpening.

A Mark Twain quote comes to mind:

The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

I guess the same thing can be said about the right PhotoShop technique too.