Lightning Over Roof Tops

[hrpremier]

This image was captured last Sunday Night, 22nd November 2008 as an electrical storm passed over Cairns. This gave me an opportunity to play with some settings on my camera and try and get a good shot of the storm

The picture I wish to highlight shows a large bright white area in the centre of the frame (The lightning itself). What I wish to do is remove all the flash of the lightning and leave the bolt above my roof top.

How if at all possible can I achieve this in Photoshop. The other hurdle I may have to overcome is that the photo was shot in jpeg format as my version of CS2 fails to recognise my 40d raw files. Is there an update for CS2 available to fix this problem which someone can supply or point me into the right direction it would be appreciated.

If anyone wishes to have a play with the picture you have my blessing.

Thanks in advance

hrpremier

4869

[shazzm]

Wow, if u can work it out, I'd love to see the "bolt".

I also have the same problem with CS2 - I can't import my Nikon D60 RAW files into Photoshop as the file is not recognised.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[Gordon]

Hrpremier, unfortunately there is a large region of saturated pixels around the lightning in the image, so there is no chance to recover the bolt in the middle of it all. The information is lost. Do you still have the original raw file on the memory card? It is possible there will be a lot more information in it.
Anyway, Cairns isn't really short of lightning bolts, so next time try it with the aperture stopped down a bit more and or lower ISO setting.

[gstark]

The picture I wish to highlight shows a large bright white area in the centre of the frame (The lightning itself). What I wish to do is remove all the flash of the lightning and leave the bolt above my roof top.

How if at all possible can I achieve this in Photoshop.

The problem here is that you've captured - and totally blown out - a very intense light source that exists within your image. I'm not sure that this is possible. Not to the extent that you would like.

The other hurdle I may have to overcome is that the photo was shot in jpeg format as my version of CS2 fails to recognise my 40d raw files. Is there an update for CS2 available to fix this problem which someone can supply or point me into the right direction it would be appreciated.

There should be. We have many members here using that combination. Have you tried Google?

[Jonesy]

Hey mate,

you may be able to recover a little out of it by a levels or curves adjustment, but being a jpg you've lost the detail that would have still been in the raw shot to start with.

On your other problem CS2 won't read 40d raws. the RAW update that contains the 40d info is for CS3 and up. Probably something with wanting people to stay up to date with the latest adobe products but I know that it doesn't help you or anyone else in the same situation...

What you can do is download the adobe DNG converter> it will be an extra step but converting your RAWs to DNG will allow you to use and process them in CS2

http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/ to read more and FREE download.

Having said that it looks like the strike was fairly close! hows your pants

[ozimax]

Can you not process the raw file in Canon Photo Professional, save as a TIF or whatever, then transfer to CS2? Otherwise as Jonesy has stated, download the DNG converter etc.

Oh I see the point now, you want to use the raw file in CS2, yep, the DNG converter is the way to go. I use CS1 and do it this way.

Ozi

[hrpremier]

Thankyou to all who replied.

I have managed to get an image replecating what I was hoping to achieve in the first place. I did this via photoshop and stiched a couple of images of other lightning shots i have captured over time and placed them over the top of my home, cut out of the original shot.

I know its not he way a photographer hopes to capture an image but it is a result I was looking for none the less.

Next time a storm passes over I will try to use advise from the post and get the shot the way I intended to the first time and shoot in RAW format.

Thankyou again to all who posted comments and feedback. Your assistance is appreciated.

Heres a copy of the end result.



Jase

4869