Trying to turn parabolas into something

[martha36]

After being inspired by all the parabola threads here, I decided to give it a try with very unsatisfactory results. But, I did take this before shot and worked it in photoshop to come up with the b/w image.



Camera: Nikon D50
Exposure: 120.7
Aperture: f/22.0
Focal Length: 22 mm



I cropped a section I liked, did massive sharpening on it, converted it to black and white and cranked the contract levels. I kind of like it because the after shot almost looks like I was shooting something metallic silver, like a kitchen whisk or something. But generally speaking, I was unhappy with the attempts, and I've never done such heavy editing in photoshop, so any critiques, suggestions and comments would be welcome!

[MSidPhoto]

WOW !!!!

Awesome picture and awesome effects. First of all can you please tell me how exactly did you take this picture....I mean the setting up and lighting etc. I would really appreciate that. Secondly, awesome editing !!!! Did you use Photoshop or some other program ??

Once again this is quite an amazing photo

KazeFox

[martha36]

Thank you so much for your encouraging words There are really much better examples and how-tos in the forums, and I was just trying to copy those, but I'm happy to share what I did.

I set up in the bathroom because it's the only room I could darken during the day. I used duct tape to hang a small and lightweight flashlight from the ceiling with thread since I have no ceiling hooks in the house. I set the camera to bulb, f-stop on 22, zoomed the lens all the way out and kept the light on to lie on the floor and focus on the flashlight. Then I put the camera lens-up on the floor, trying to line the flashlight beam with the center of the lens, and turned out the lights. I started the flashlight swinging, then used the remote to open the shutter. I counted to about 20 then put a piece of cardboard over the lens and moved the camera to what I hoped would be one of the corners of the frame. I started the flashlight swinging again and counted to 20. I repeated the process until I had done all four corners, then fired the remote again to end the shot.

In photoshop, I just cropped a part I kind of liked, then used unsharpen mask (under filters, sharoen) three times to sharpen the light lines. Then I went under the enhance tab to color and clicked on remove color to convert to b/w. And finally used the enhance tab under adjust brightness/contrast to really crank up the contrast. That's about all I'm capable of doing in photoshop!

[LaBajista]

I think the after shot looks fantastic. Very nice.