The appreciation of autumn

Yes, another still life, but what did you expect?

So, how it was done?

My idea was to create a traditional autumn still life in “northern renaissance” style. Here is the process:
1. I put objects together that are in yellow/brownish "autumn" colours and have some “old” texture (BTW, my "studio" was built for about $20 using basic supply from the nearest hardware store and objects were acquired for a buck or two at local yard sales). Then, with camera on the tripod, I composed the frame.

2. When the sun was down I lit up the candle and took the first shot in RAW, at ISO 200, f/8 and 9 seconds (which was -2/3 expo correction). The candlelight was blown, but the rest was OK
3. Converted in ACR to keep details in midtones/shadows

4. Took the second shot in RAW, at ISO 200, f/8 and 1/8 seconds (in manual mode, candlelight was OK, but the rest was almost black)
5. Converted in ACR just to keep details in candlelight only

 6. In CS, copied the second image as a layer with 50% fill and opacity and flatten the image

7. Straitened the horizontal line, re-sized to 1920/1280, burned and dodged areas to my liking and used clone tool to remove unnecessary details, etc


8. Applied Smart Sharpen = amount 50% and radius 0.6

9. Posted
Thanks,
vkphoto