Astrophotography post-processing

[Chexov]

Hey guys,

Yesterday I took this cool astrophoto of my campsite with the (I guess) milky way in the back. I edited a little bit, lowering the temperature, increasing the contrast and lowering the brightness and saturation a little bit. Also I patched this little dark spot on the bottom left of the sky. However, I am somehow not entirely satisfied with the result. Could you please give me comments, critic and advise? Thanks a lot in advance.

Left side is unedited, right is with edits. Somehow, I now like the unedited version better :-D.


If you want to edit the photo yourself, please shot me a pm. I'll gladly send it to you.

[DickyOZ]

Nice capture Peter, I prefer the edited version. The whiter highlights in the milky way make it look truly milky. I also like the campfire glow on the bike and tent, they really add to the image.

I would be interested to know what lens and settings you used. My browser EXIF plugin doesn't show anything.

[Shadowman]

Only slight difference in each, no preference for either one. Nice effort, although clearly visible I think the campsite/bike would benefit from another color choice or slightly tone down the reds.

[ionian]

Peter, I haven't done any astrophotography so I can only say what I would do if faced wtih this image as a post-processing challenge.

I'd go in to photoshop or lightroom and play with the colour balance in the sky, toning out the orange and increasing contrast. I'd also move to a more blue temperature balance as you have in your edit.

That smudge in the bottom left corner that you removed - that (I believe) is the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. I personally would want to display it.

Id them mask out the sky and play with the colour balance of the foreground, toning down the reds and possibly introduing some gentle light fall-off from the camp fire in the immediate scene.

Hope this helps - I'd be interested to hear how experienced astrophotographers would approach it as well.

[chauncey]

Remember that Hubble images are Photoshopped...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGp2lEIaEOY
I am green with your location to capture those images.

[Polar01]

Peter I am trying to do some astrophotography, found two interesting web sites, you might want to give them a look see.

http://www.davemorrowphotography.com...SkyPhotography
and
http://www.lonelyspeck.com/astrophotography-101/

Cheers: Allan

[Thlayle]

Hey guys,

Yesterday I took this cool astrophoto of my campsite with the (I guess) milky way in the back. I edited a little bit, lowering the temperature, increasing the contrast and lowering the brightness and saturation a little bit. Also I patched this little dark spot on the bottom left of the sky. However, I am somehow not entirely satisfied with the result. Could you please give me comments, critic and advise? Thanks a lot in advance.

Left side is unedited, right is with edits. Somehow, I now like the unedited version better :-D.


If you want to edit the photo yourself, please shot me a pm. I'll gladly send it to you.

Nice shot, Peter.

A couple of other great night photographers to check out are Royce Bair and David Kingham.

I like your processed version better, but along the lines noted by others, I would try to work the temperature a bit more to see if I could reduce some of the orange/red color in the sky. It's more personal preference than anything.

I agree with Simon: that's the Magellan Cloud and I also think it would be better in the composition.

I'm not sure, but I think you captured this before the Milky Way galactic core was fully risen, so in terms of capture it might have been better to take this shot just a little later. There's quite a few resources out there to help you ID what's in the night sky and when and where to look for it on any given night. Myself, I am using a mobile app these days called "The Photographer's Ephemeris". In night mode, it can pinpoint things for you in your exact location.

I usually do some white point adjustment and sometimes even add a small amount of clarity. I'm not so sure that would have helped int this situation: there's a lot of fine detail in the stars already. It must have been an especially dark location with very clear skies.

I am curious about the focal length, ISO, exposure time, and camera body you used. Even without processing, you captured a lot of light, something that can be tricky with astrophotography. On my 14mm lens, I can go as long as 25 to 30 seconds without any noticeable star trails, but I am using a APS-C sensor and that doesn't capture as much light as a full frame.

Regards,

Randy

[Chexov]

Waaaah sorry guys. I haven't gotten any notifications about you writing these wonderful advices here!

I will edit the photo again keeping your recommendations in mind.

The photo was taken with 30sec, f/3.5, and ISO 5000 with a Nikon D610 body and Nikkor 3.5-4.5 24-85mm AF-S lens.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Thlayle]

The photo was taken with 30sec, f/3.5, and ISO 5000 with a Nikon D610 body and Nikkor 3.5-4.5 24-85mm AF-S lens.

Well, you are set up quite nicely for night shooting if that is something you want to keep doing.

Night photography and astrophotography are great fun. Overcoming the special challenges involved can often 'carry over' to other types of shooting.

-rb

[ionian]

I had a play with the jpeg you posted in the original post, so this is obviously a low res hack job - plus I used my iPad, so no photoshop here.

I first went to curves and eased down the red channel in the middle and shadows part of the curve, just to eliminate the orange from the sky. This has actually removed some of the milkiness- the smaller stars in the spiral arm - and if I was on my laptop I'd be brushing them back in. I then used a brush and painted over the Milky Way with saturation and details (clarity) enhahancements. I dodged the smaller galaxy slightly, but that hasn't been very successful on such a low res image. Finally I removed saturation from the bike, dodged the camp area and cloned out a couple of tiny distracting details.

I'm not saying it is any way near perfect, but it may be closer to what you hoped to capture:

[Chexov]

Well, you are set up quite nicely for night shooting if that is something you want to keep doing.

Night photography and astrophotography are great fun. Overcoming the special challenges involved can often 'carry over' to other types of shooting.

-rb

Thanks. Yeah until now I Enjoy Astrophotography the most actually. I also wanted to go into Portrait and street photography but I'm traveling Africa at the moment which is why I do a lot of Astro and landscape photography. But once I'm back in the city and away from nature I have to make do with objects that have the annoying habit of moving.

However I Wanted to get purchase a camera with a focal length of up to 300mm or so for close ups of eg wildlife. Any recommendations?

[Chexov]

I had a play with the jpeg you posted in the original post, so this is obviously a low res hack job - plus I used my iPad, so no photoshop here.

I first went to curves and eased down the red channel in the middle and shadows part of the curve, just to eliminate the orange from the sky. This has actually removed some of the milkiness- the smaller stars in the spiral arm - and if I was on my laptop I'd be brushing them back in. I then used a brush and painted over the Milky Way with saturation and details (clarity) enhahancements. I dodged the smaller galaxy slightly, but that hasn't been very successful on such a low res image. Finally I removed saturation from the bike, dodged the camp area and cloned out a couple of tiny distracting details.

I'm not saying it is any way near perfect, but it may be closer to what you hoped to capture:

Wow that looks cool! Nice and clean. I like what you have done with the campsite! I agree that the milkyness of the milky way is a bit missing. That was my initial struggle as well as I only have an iPad at my disposal at the moment as well. Which app do you use? I used Pixelmator until now.

[ionian]

I use a real mix of apps because not one does everything I want - but for this image I used two main ones, Picsplay and Snapseed.

I adjusted individual colour channel curves in Picsplay, then saved a copy and opened it in Snapseed to do the rest of the adjustments. Snapseed has a decent content aware clone ability that makes retouching landscapes easy (although i prefer a different programme for portraits).

I also use Lightroom mobile for its dehaze function and for mono conversion ability, as I can adjust individual colour channels in the conversion; Picsplay and Pixlr for preset effects; Picsplay for vignettes as it has a range of useful options; and Facetune for portrait retouching. I wish I could combine them all in one editor, but it's not a big hassle to move between programmes as needed.