Questions And Answers
Questions and Answers
About Processing Nightscape Photos
Question: Hi Can you just prepare tutorial about how to edit milky way?
Answer: This is an excerpt form my website:
http://lightcrafter.smugmug.com/About-Nightscapes
There is a lot more on the website if you are interested.
About Workflow:
I'll try to pass along some workflow ideas, as these change and evolve. It changes as I learn.
There is a choice you have to make at some point in the processing. It can be made initially or later. If you want the sky to be blue with a cooler look overall, you will want to process the sky with a cooler white balance. This usually turns the highlights in the Milky Way a magenta color, and is very pretty. This seems to be the most common choice photographers make. The sky experts say that the real color of the Milky Way is more yellow, and they assume the sky is black (and I suppose it is out in space!). If you use the Temp and Tone curves to make the darkest part of the sky a dark grey, several things happen. The Milky way develops a yellow hue rather than magenta. The stars develop individual colors. If you look closely you will see blue, yellow, red, white, and occasionally orange stars, with the largest number being blue. This reflects the temperature at which the stars burn, the bluer stars burning hotter. This is a better reflection of real life. If you process the sky as a "cool" blue color it will in part cover up airglow (green) and light pollution (yellow, orange, red). If you process the sky more neutral or more "warm" you will find a lot of subtle color coming out. The airglow and light pollution shows up much more vividly. It can be attractive or a nuisance. You can then try to make the light pollution and airglow go away, or you can embrace it and work with it. This can make the sky look very surrealistic, with lots of green, yellow, orange and red. IT can look beautiful but very otherworldly. Lots of photographers try to get rid of this color to make the sky look more natural or more like we expect. Lately I have stopped trying to get rid of these colors and have embraced them (at least for now). A good choice might be to process the sky more neutral to start with and then adjust the color later as desired. You could select the sky in photoshop and then use the color tools.
The initial part of processing can be done in Adobe RAW or Lightroom (I use Lightroom). For processing I usually make the darkest part of the sky as neutral as possible in Lightroom (using the Temp and Tint sliders). It is hard to get it perfect, at least for me. When I say I make the sky as neutral as possible, I do this: I pick the darkest area and try to make it grey or only slightly tinted. The easiest way to do this is to look at the separate histograms for red, green and blue in the histogram graph and use the Temp and Tint sliders to get the separate color curves to overlap or match up as best you can. Overlap or superimpose the blue and yellow peaks (in the part on the histogram that represents the sky - the large rightmost peak), then superimpose the green and magenta peaks as best you can, then go back and superimpose the blue and yellow peaks again, keeping an eye on the darkest sky. This means that you no longer have a cool or warm tone bias. The more neutral you make the dark sky, the more subtle color you can bring out elsewhere. If I want to end up with a blue sky I will then move the Temp slider very minimally to the left (one click). This is virtually un-noticeable at this stage. To get a preview of what the sky will eventually look like go to the "Tone Curve" function in Lightroom. Click on the little square in the bottom right hand corner, so you can manipulate the curve freely. The place a very steep "S" shape on the curve, up at the top and down on the bottom. This will increase the contrast tremendously, and you can see which way the color is trending. I like to leave it with a minimally blue bias in the darkest sky. Then right click on the curve and click "flatten curve", and the sky will return to a grey flat color (contrast will be applied later in Photoshop). Usually the upper sky is so much darker than the lower sky that I may lighten the upper sky with a gradient in Lightroom to make the sky more uniform in density. This helps a lot in processing the sky later. I also do noise reduction, sharpening, and lens correction in Lightroom and export to Photoshop. You can do all of this in Adobe RAW with the exception of the gradient function. In Lightroom or Adobe Raw here are some good initial settings for sharpening and noise reduction for an ISO of 6400 in a Canon 6D:
For sharpening, Amount 50, Radius 0.7, Detail 15-20, Masking 75. For noise reduction, Luminance about 40-50, Detail 50, Contrast 50, Color about 17-20, Detail 50, smoothness 100. The amount of noise reduction you need will vary with your camera and ISO. I then export or open in Photoshop. To do this right click the image and choose "Edit in Photoshop". In Photoshop I carefully select the sky and foreground and save the selections separately. I chose the sky and may increase the vibrance a slight amount (10). This darkens the color in the sky slightly. You can darken the sky primarily in Curves by adding contrast, but if this is your primary way to darken the sky, then you may be adding a lot of noise and graininess. I mildly increase the vibrance first, then mildly increase the contrast in curves use a "S" shaped curve. Increasing the vibrance first means that you can use a smaller contrast adjustment in curves to darken the sky, and end up with a less noisy and less contrasty sky. Many times the sky can end up looking overly sharp, and this helps to lessen that effect.
I find that this will really bring out the subtle sky colors if you start with a neutral sky. If you make the sky very blue in Lightroom from the very beginning, them you cover up a lot of the subtle colors in the sky, and also you can give the airglow and light pollution unpleasant color casts. Airglow and light pollution can be attractive! I may make small changes in the color with the "curves" tool using the Red, Green, and Blue curves, or by using the Color Balance function. I frequently choose the Milky Way with the lasso tool and feather it about 200 pixels, and then use then adjust the brightness and contrast and vibrance. I frequently chose the lower sky separately and darken it, as it is usually much brighter than the rest of the sky.This often improves the color tones in the MW, but not always. I then chose the foreground and adjust the contrast separately in curves. I do a little dodging and burning for hot areas or areas that are too dark, and that's about it. I commonly increase the local contrast using the Unsharp Mask function, using an Amount of 10-20, a radius of 40-50, and a threshold of 0. This increases contrast and gives the impression of sharpness, without increasing the perceived noise too much. If there is too much noise I use the Topaz noise reduction plug-in. It is remarkable good at reducing noise without making the image too soft.
Cheers, Wayne Pinkston ©2015
More Posts from Wayne-pinkston and Others
Sunset Arch, Escalante by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Sunset Arch, Escalante. Low Level Lighting, LLL, used under the Arch, and dim LLL used on the outside of the arch. The Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument is a terrific dark sky location, recently drastically reduced in size by the government. This was taken while assisting during a workshop by Royce Bair, a terrific teacher. Check out his ebook! For more images like this please take a look at Wayne Pinkston Photography . Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! I would have never believed that my photos could ever receive 22 million views. A big thank you for making this possible!
Wandering in the Badlands by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is a panorama of one of the flatter areas in the Bisti Badlands in NW New Mexico. A few photos back I downloaded a view of a small wash or ravine surrounded by steep stony hills or ridges. www.flickr.com/photos/pinks2000/22455038082/in/dateposted... This badlands are a mixture of both broad flat areas (with many moderate to small hoodoos), mixed with long areas of water cut ravines and ridges. Both have their own unique beauty. It's certainly easier to walk around in the flat areas, and the flatter areas have most of the named hoodoos, but to get to these areas you usually have to negotiate the hills and ravines. It's a fun but lonely and desolate place at night. The first night I went there a German couple was trailer camping in the parking area and I parked near them. I was going out a little before sunset, and he said, "You're going out there? Now?" The chances that you will be alone out there at night are just about 100%. After all, who is crazy enough to go out there at night? This is a series of single vertical exposures combined in Lightroom. BTW, this was taken on May 18, not April. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family out there. Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog
Whispers of the Past by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook An old house in New Mexico. Lighting with Low Level Lighting with a Gaol Zero Micro Lantern. There are 2 exposures for focus stacking, one for the foreground and one for the sky, both at 14 mm. Sky shot at 15 sec., f 4.5, 15 sec., and ISO 10,000, foreground shot at 25 sec., f 4.5, and ISO 10,000. I shot the foreground at f 4.5 to get more depth of field and forgot to change it for the sky. Oops... Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!
Ancient Bristlecone Pines on Flickr.
Ancient Bristlecone Pines in Bryce Canyon National Park, with the Milky Way above.
Window to the Stars by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Spectacular alcove in Utah with a “window” in the roof. There are petroglyphs far to the left and the alcove opens into a ravine with vegetation and a couple of small temporary or intermittent pools of water. There are 5 photographers in the photo. They look very small, can you spot them? There is also a small pool of water within the alcove with reflections. Very cool spot! Panorama, 20 sec., f/3.2, 17 mm, ISO 12,800.
In An Alien Land on Flickr.
Goblin Valley State Park, Utah, USA. Canon 6D, Sigma 15 mm fisheye lens at f2.8, 25 sec. exposure, ISO 6400. For perspective, most of the "HooDoo's or mounds in the image are 6-15 feet (2-5 meters) high. Hope you enjoy!
Peek-A-Boo by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This is a panorama of several photos taken with a 12 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens. I’ve included 2 photos. The first photo is the image after the distortion was corrected in Photoshop. The second image is before the correction. Note the angled horizon in the second image. The camera and lens were pretty severely angled to get the entire opening in the image. There is Low Level Lighting (LLL) with 2 Goal Zero Micro Lanterns. One is behind me to my left and one is down the ravine to get some light on the more distant walls. Both are turned to low and are covered with a handkerchief to further diffuse and lower the light. The Goal Zero Mini has a very nice neutral to slightly warm light colour temperature. 12 mm, f/2.8, 25 sec., ISO 8000. I actually like the one with the crooked horizon a little better, but someone will complain, lol. This recess is somewhat like a cave or alcove and somewhat like a small canyon, not sure what to call it. Maybe a cave-yon? 😂 The Milky Way lines up beautifully at certain times of the year making this a great spot. This is in the Navajo Nation and you need a Navajo guide to go there.
The Forgotten Arm, Part 1: by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Painted Hand Ancestral Puebloan Ruins “The Forgotten Arm” is actually a boxing term describing “a move in which one arm is used to hit the opponent, causing him to "forget" about the other arm, which is then used to deliver a harsher blow” (Wikipedia). I am going to borrow this phrase to describe the Northern Arm of the Milky Way, or arm of the Milky Way we see extending North in the Northern Hemisphere. Our sun actually lies in the Orion Arm or Orion Spur, a minor arm of the Milky Way between the Sagittarius Arm and the Perseus Arm. Since we are looking from within the Milky Way, we see it as a disk-like structure edge on, rather than a spiral. A large part of what we see when we look away from the Galactic Core is the Perseus Arm. I call this northern portion the “Forgotten Arm” because we go to so much trouble to shoot away from it, and work to include the Galactic Core in our photos instead. We even have “Milky Way Season”, implying the season is over after the core moves below the horizon in our Northern Hemisphere winter. The “Northern Arm” is still up there, and has lots of interesting structures to see, and is photogenic in itself. Among structures in this region are the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), other Galaxies including Mirach’s Ghost Galaxy (NGC404), the Triangulum Galaxy (M33), and others, as well as star clusters including the Double Cluster (DC), Spiral Cluster (M34), Open Cluster (C28), Dragonfly Cluster (DF) and others, as well as Nebula including the Heart Nebula (IC1805), and Soul Nebula (IC1848). I will try and label some of these structures. There will be 2 photos, one with landscape, and one magnified and labeled. More to come, Cheers Wayne
Bell Tower by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This one’s a bit abstract. We are looking up at the night sky and Milky Way in a bell tower of an old abandoned Cathedral in Madagascar. There is Low Level Lighting (LLL). The light inside the tower was a Goal Zero Micro Lantern, an omnidirectional light. The light outside was a Cineroid LED light panel set on 4000K and turned to low. ___________________________________________ There is a very large window in the front of the bell tower in the shape of a cross. Most of the glass has been broken out. ___________________________________________ There are 19 images stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker. 14-24 mm lens, 14 mm, 15 sec., f/2.8, ISO 12,800. Thanks for looking, Wayne
The Sand Worm by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Single Exposure, Nikon 810A, 14-24 lens, 22 mm, f 2.8, 25 sec., ISO 12,800 The Sand Worm, New Mexico Badlands. For all the sci-fi fans out there, this was Inspired by the novel DUNE by Frank Herbert, cited in 2003 as the best selling sci-fi book of all time. Wandering the desert at night a pale apparition rose from the desert floor, and in the dim light I immediately I recalled the giant Sand Worms of the book Dune. In the dark it's one of those times when chills go down your spine (or maybe it was just the cold. lol). The Sand Worms were mysterious giants that lived beneath the sands on the desert planet Dune (Arrakis), and produced the spice Melange, the most valuable substance in the universe. If you like sci-fi at all, this is one of the best reads ever, highly recommend! From the Book: " I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." For more images like this please take a look at Wayne Pinkston Photography . Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. It's a pleasure to post here. Cheers, Wayne
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