Taking a good "glow" picture

[Gracie]

How in the world do you get a picture of a marble with the black light on it. Flash or no flash the thing is always washed out and you can't tell that it glows.
Rhonda

[That Girl]

Rhonda, can you adjust the color "levels" with your phot editing program?

Distance from the marble matters in blacklight pix. But even after you've optimized that for a given marble, there is still the problem of the camera autoadjusting levels.

It's been a long time since I played around with my editor, so I can't remember precisely what steps I took, but I used to get good results. There was one particular adjustment which went a very long way toward bringing the photos in line with what I saw in person.

I THINK it was decreasing the "maximum output level" in the "green channel". Changing the maximum number from 255 to 220-something MIGHT have been the magic trick in photoshop.

Looking at a couple of blacklight pix in other threads reinforces my idea that this is what worked. Changing just the one level took most of the unnatural color out of the background yet left most of the brightness in the marble.

[Gracie]

Thanks Steph!
I did get a hold of my ex's camera today and took one and it came out perfect! My camera is a good one but older and it doesn't have a stabilizer on it and when you take a pic without a flash it comes out blurry 9 out of 10 times. With his I just pointed and shot and there it was. On my list for the "kids" to get for my next bday .
Rhonda