South Coast Sunset

South Coast Sunset, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

I saw this shot the day before taking my daughter to a church event. As I drove down the freeway the blue of the sky and the sunset reflection in the buildings along with the full moon made for a great scene. So there I am driving down the freeway looking at freeway over passes wondering where there would be a good shot. How many of you know the deal...driving, looking, driving slower, looking more? This was the only overpass to get the shot and even this over pass had fencing so you had to go off to the side to get the shot.
Knowing that this shot wouldn't be here next week, next month or next year. The next day I went out at sunset and set my shot.
I did mix 2 shots, 1 for the overall scene and the other with a 70-200L lens to get the moon. Otherwise the moon comes out smaller and blown out. I did all of my photoshop work and then masked in the moon where the blown out moon was at. I did scale the moon down to size.
Thanks for stopping by and taking a look!!

The Shot:

Freeway:

Single Exposure-F/11, ISO 200,  5 seconds, -1EV,  Tripod Mounted with cable release, 1ds Mark II, 24-105L @100mm

Moon:

Single Exposure-F/5.6, ISO 320, 1/500, Tripod Mounted with cable Release, 1ds Mark II, 70-200L with 2X extender @ 400mm

Post Processing:

>Raw- Recovery Slider, Exposure, Blacks, Remove sharpen, opened in CS5 as 16bit tiff

CS-5:

>Mode-Lab Color

>Duplicate Layer

>Curves-Adjust for Lightness, A & B Channels

>Reduced opacity until desired results

>Flattened Images

>Mode-RGB

>Topaz Adjust-Increase Color and brightness

>Topaz InFocus-Increase sharpness

>Noise Ninja-Masked for sky

>Nik Color Efex Pro

  >Pro Contrast-decrease opacity until desired result

>Adjustment Layer Levels-Masked for sky only-increased and darkened blues

>Adjustment Layer Levels-Masked for mountains-darkened 

>Cloned out old blown out moon (Blown out from long exposure)

>Masked in corrected exposure moon

>Transform tool on moon-decrease moon in size until desired result

>Move tool-Moved moon to desired position

>Cropped photo for better composition

>High pass sharpening

>Framed and Sized for posting