Smokin' Hot Photos...(Continued from Playing with Fire...Well Smoke)

Okay so I went a little crazy with the smoke in the shot this time, but I did NOT set my house on fire to get this photo! As I had mentioned in my previous blog, I am using incense cones to create the smoke. Last time I used only one cone, this time I am using three. Yes I said Three! Only three cones and for that matter I could have used only one. This is actually a combined image of thirty different shots.
I started with the same set-up as last time except this time I did mask the sides of my Nikon Speedlight SB-600 so that the it created a narrow band of light through the smoke trails. I took about seventy frames - some letting the smoke curl on it's own and some waving my hand through the air just before the shot to create turbulence in the smoke.
One thing I forgot to mention in my previous article is that - because I shoot under in exposure (so as not to lose any details in the tonality of the smoke), all images must be post-processed to bring out the actual shot. In other words you can't really see the smoke trails until you play with the levels of highlight/shadow/midtone in your photo editing software.
So after processing the seventy frames. I chose thirty of my favorites and kept them open in Photoshop. I then created a new image file that was the height of my images, but about nine times the width. I then flood filled the background with black. Then I started adding the individual smoke images as layers onto this background setting the blending mode to lighten. This allows only the lightest part of the images to appear on the background. This also lets the smoke lay on top of other smoke and appear as if it was all in one photograph. I actually believe you couldn't get the smoke variation in this shot without using layering.
After I had placed the images where I liked them, I saved the file, duplicated the merged image, and closed the original file (It is huge and impossible to work with in it's layered state). I then began the process of touching up and colorization with a layer of gradient color overlay. This is the same as last time, but I did do a few distortions to the gradient to create a wave in the gradation in the smoke (so it wasn't a straight line of colors). I have left out some details of my post processing techniques, but this gives you an idea how the image was achieved. feel free though to email me with questions.
Anyway, I was very pleased with the finished product this time and will probably be adding a lot of smoke to my images for the next little while :D