Matlab meets a new slit-scan image

I’m working on material for a presentation this weekend — more on that in a future post — and I decided to print this slit-scan sunset image:

But when I looked at it closely, I saw some artifacts near the horizon:

I figured the Matlab one-dimensional averaging code that I created for the succulents pictures  could fix that with little change. I was right:

But here’s the surprise; when I reworked the image I came upon a whole new conception;

Much more subtle and moody. Less in your face. I like it.

The reworking involved a lot of steps:

Matlab 10 is an image filtered with a 1×1024 (2^10) kernel, and Matlab 6 is filtered with a 1×64 (2^6) kernel. I only needed a little bit of Matlab 10. The Shadows and Highlights layer whose name doesn’t fit is derived from Matlab 6, with Topaz Adjust and Topaz Detail enhancements.