Not too much to tell about this image, really. Originally, I wanted to try to get the raw, high-contrast look that the early Babylon 5 publicity renders had, so I made a fairly boring image with intent to brighten it up later in Photoshop. Well, that didn’t work out.

About a week later, I was looking at some photography websites, and decided that I needed to experiment with more techniques, not just someday, but that right then. So I pulled up the image from my harddrive, and thought back to a magazine article on making better-looking black and white photos by using the “Channel Mixer” in Photoshop instead of just de-saturating the image. A few minutes of balancing red, green, and blue, adding a little light bloom, and some film grain to complete the effect, and I had a much better image. It’s now become one of my favorites.

Rising Star (Black and White)

If you’re curious, here’s the original color image.

Also, as a bonus, here’s another render from a while ago that I didn’t bother posting on it’s own, because it was a remake of an older image that was so flat and boring that I, apparently, never bothered to post it on-line. Admittedly, this one got a bit more of a makeover than my HD rerenders normally get (usually it’s just swapping in some area lights for planet and nebulae fill lights).