Latest Posts by wayne-pinkston - Page 6

King of Wings with Comet 252/Linear by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This formation is called the King of Wings, and lies in the Badlands of New Mexico, south of Farmington, and north of Chaco Canyon. It is a "winged" hoodoo, and the massive eccentric wing is at least 30 feet, or 10 m long. You can easily walk under the wing. I am not usually claustrophobic, but every time I walked under it I had the feeling it would collapse on me, lol, so I qiuckly learned to walk around it. It has probably looked like this for millennia, but the eccentric weight on the rock must be tremendous. The camera was level, even thought the horizon does not look it. 14-24 mm lens at 19 mm, f/2.8, 20 sec., and ISO 12,800. Cheers, Wayne The small blue fuzzy object in the right center sky above the stone wing is the comet 252P/LINEAR. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy!  Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Table Top Hoodoos by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Well that's what I call them for lack of a better term. These are in the Bisti Badlands, and are mini hoodoos, only about 2-3 feet, or 65-100 cm high. There is at least one area with numerous small table top hoodoos. Here you can see more of them receding into the background. I'm always afraid I'll stumble in the dark and knock a top off. lol Fortunately that has not happened! The area was the floor of a vast inland sea millions of years ago, and many layers of sediment were formed, eventually compacted into sandstone, some layers harder and some layers softer. The unusual shape is caused by greater erosion of the softer lower layer, and slower erosion of the harder upper layer. Shooting in this direction the sky is wonderfully dark with minimal light pollution. More to the W &NW there is more light pollution. Shot at 14 mm, f 2.8, 30 sec., ISO 6400. 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

Just a Walk in the Park by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Arches National Park at night in winter, along the trail to Landscape Arch and Devil's Garden. Landscape Arch would be off to my right. The was a beautiful and quiet night. I just love the was snow absorbs sound making the world seen very peaceful. There were animal tracks all around but I saw no animals. This is the far northern end of the Northern Arm of the Milky Way. The red color may be faint red airglow. Taken at 14mm, f 2.8,, 25 sec., and ISO 6400. 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

Questions and Answers

How to book lodging if you are chasing clear skies

Question: I just assumed it was kinda off season early June but I get the impression now that it actually gets quieter in July and August due to the heat. I'm reluctant to book in advance ... I need to follow the clear skies. Have you had any serious issues finding accommodations at last minute in say early June?

Answer:  In June it can be a problem at the last minute. The answer is somewhat round-about. I think June is the worst month overall to get lodging, with May next worse. July and August are a little better. I'll tell you what I do, but please keep in mind that I stay in cheap motels. I am not there much at night, and only come back around 5 to 7 a.m, sleep till maybe 1 p.m, and then go out to scout new location, or drive to new places, them try to be at the spot around sunset. Anyway, I do not spend much time in the motel, so I just get the cheapest one that has OK reviews (hopefully no bed bugs!!!).

So.... I usually get on a booking website. I usually use Orbitz, just out of habit. I book a motel where I think I want to be. Sometimes you have to pay up front, sometimes you don't. They have cancellation clauses usually. Occasionally they have a "no cancellation", or "no refund" policy", and I do not book them. Read the fine print while booking. They typically have a policy that you can cancel by 4 pm, the day before or 48 hrs before. I keep an eye on the weather, and if the outlook is cloudy, I will try to book in a clearer locale if possible, and then cancel to one i made in the cloudy place. Orbitz has been good about refunding money into my account as long as you follow the motel rules. This way I am not left out of a place to sleep. I usually do not cancel until I have an alternative. So far, so good.

So far I have had no problems with this method. Moab could be a problem in the high season. Still, there are usually some cancellations, and if you call around enough you can find a room. There may be less choice at the last minute. The smallest towns like Escalante, or maybe Kanab, can be the biggest problems because there are just not many motel rooms to start with, so there is less opportunity. Here is the worst scenario, one that I have seen: When it is actually raining, campers flood into town looking for a room, especially families with young kids. I suspect sitting in a tent all day with very young kids is not easy! Anyway, if it's raining rooms disappear fast. It does not rain much, but I have found that when there is continuous rain all day, then the whole region was clouded over, and there is nowhere to go, and I just sit it out.

I have never had a problem in Northern New Mexico, around Farmington and the NM Badlands. There seem to be plenty of rooms there. Just be careful of the very small towns. Hope this helps! One more point, if you are going to cancel, don't forget to cancel in time to get your refund. I learned this the hard way. Anyway, this can give you flexibility to move around if necessary. 

Good luck, Wayne     2016

Life on the Edge by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Anasazi Part 7: This is False Kiva in Canyonlands National Park, Utah, USA. an Anasazi (or more properly Ancestral Puebloan) ruin. They are better known as the Cliff Dwellers. The exact purpose of this structure is unknown. It resembles a Kiva, or Ceremonial Center, but does not fit all the classic characteristics. The back left corner of the alcove or cave is roped off, presumably for possible future excavations. The Ancestral Puebloans literally lived on the edge in many ways. In the 13th Century, many of the structures were built in cliffs that were difficult to access, possibly because of raiding or strife. Archeologists have found evidence of massacres in some locations, that academics sometimes kindly call "warfare events". Anyway, life was perilous and frequently short. Examination of skeletons show many "stress bands" in the long bones from periodic episodes of starvation. Surprisingly, they also suffered from osteoporosis, or softening of the bones from loss of calcification or mineralization. We think of osteoporosis as an older person problem, related to aging an inactivity. They were most definitely not inactive, and did not live long. As game meat became scarce they relied more and more on corn they grew. A predominately corn diet lacks at least one essential amino acid, resulting in osteoporosis and weakened bones. They lived on the edge of survival every day, a truly amazing people living in a harsh land. As a side note, about 1 meter in front of that wall is a long straight drop down a cliff. There is also some smoke on the horizon from wildfires in California. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy!  Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Questions and Answers:

How to stitch photos together for panoramas

Question: Incredible work man! How did you stitch the 14mm shots so seamlessly?! The distortion on my Rokinon 14 makes stitching a huge issue in post.

Answer: Use a lot of overlap when taking the photos! I open the images in either Lightroom or Adobe RAW and use the lens correction function to undistort then as much as possible. If there is not a lens profile for your lens then do it manually and do it exactly the same for each photo. Also, there is less distortions if the camera lens is more horizontal. I get it as horizontal as I can and still get all the sky comfortably in the photo. I use a really wide angle lens. This means there may be a lot of "extra" foreground at the bottom, and I just crop it off. Hope this helps. Cheers, Wayne

In the Valley of Dreams by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Valley of Dreams landscape at night, New Mexico Badlands, New Mexico, USA. This is a single exposure. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! . Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Winter Wonderland by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Pine Tree Arch in Arches National Park, Utah. This was taken on a chilly winters night in Arches National Park, following a recent snowstorm. The stillness and quietness were remarkable. I've always enjoyed the way snow absorbs sound and creates a sense of quiet solitude. There was no one else crazy enough to be out at there, and even the animals were nowhere to be seen. There were lots of rabbit and deer tracks though. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. The session continued until my camera literally froze. The battery still worked but everything covered over in a layer of icy frost, including the lens. After heating (with hand warmers) and cleaning it several times I finally gave up, but was able to get a few photos completed. 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

Where's Waldo? (aka Where's Wally?) by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is Double Arch in Arches National Park, Utah. Do remember the picture game "Where's Waldo"? You had to find Waldo in a crowded photo. Anyway, in this photo it's "Where's Eric" (sorry Eric, you volunteered!). There is a figure in the photo with a headlamp, posed to give some scale to the photo. The arch is huge. Since Eric is in front of the arch and closer to the camera, he is actually magnified a bit, and the arch minimized a bit. Nikon 810A Camera, Nikon 14-24 mm lens, 20 mm, f 2.8, 30 sec., ISO 8000. I just discovered it's Where's Wally in most of the world, and Where's Waldo in the USA and Canada. Thanks Oscar for the info! The figure in the photo is Eric Gail you can see his excellent gallery here: www.flickr.com/photos/dot21studios Eric kindly volunteered to pose in the photo. Thanks Eric. BTW, I need another Model Release! LOL 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

Hoodoos in the Badlands of New Mexico by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Bisti Badlands, New Mexico 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

Beyond Perception by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is a panorama from Joshua Tree National Park taken last spring. There is some light pollution on the horizon that adds some color. I did a series of photos from Joshua Tree that kind of got pushed aside by more recent photos. This panorama is a combination of 11 vertical images taken with a Canon 1Dx camera, Nikon 14-24 mm lens, at 14 mm, f 2.8, 25 sec, and ISO 6400. 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

Monarch Cave Ruins by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Anasazi Part 8: Monarch Cave Ruins in Comb Ridge, Utah

Visions of an Alien Land by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Bisti Badlands, New Mexico 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

Eric and the Arch by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Sorry for the title Eric, I couldn't help myself. Once it popped into my head it wouldn't go away. It just has a classic sound to it, like a midieval knight going out to slay the arch (or dragon). I think you definitely slayed this arch. My apologies for posting a similar photo previously, but I ended up liking this one better. By the way, this is Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Utah. The person slaying the arch with his headlight is Eric Gail, fellow photographer and friend. He volunteered to be the model for this. Hey Eric, I need a model release! You can see his excellent gallery here: www.flickr.com/photos/dot21studios Light pollution from the town of Moab lights up smoke on the horizon from the wildfires in California. 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

Set the Table for One... by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: A quiet night in the Bisti Badlands of New Mexico. There are many of these "Table Top" Hoodoos scattered around the area. These develop when the base , a softer rock, erodes faster than the top, making for a wide variety of shapes. These table tops are one of my favorites. When the flat tops are really long or wide, they have been given the name of "winged hoodoos", and some are quite long and wing-like. Here I was playing around with the lights. Canon 6D camera, Nikon 14-24 mm lens at 14 mm, f 2.8, 30 sec., and ISO 6400. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Racing the Clouds by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is an image of Cyclops Arch in the Alabama Hills of California (eastern part of Ca. adjacent to the Sierra Nevada Mtns.). I arrived and got a couple of unlighted shots, and this one decent lighted shot before clouds rolled in and obscured the beautiful sky. There is a thick layer of clouds just above the frame, but I was able to salvage this one shot. I ended coming back the next night. One good thing is that cloudy skies = a good nights sleep! This is a single exposure. Canon 6D camera, Nikon 14-24 mm lens, f 2.8, 30 sec., ISO 6400. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

A Big Thank You! by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: THIS ONE'S FOR YOU! This is a photo I have posted before, a nighttime panorama of Joshua Tree National Park. It was recently selected as one of the Top 25 Photos on Flickr for 2015, as seen on the Flickr Blog: blog.flickr.net/en/2015/12/01/flickrs-top-25-photos-in-2015/ If you read the method of choosing photos, it has to do with the number of interactions generated, including the number of views, the number favs, the number of comments, etc. This means I post the photo, and get the recognition, but it ONLY comes from all the work and interaction that you guys did. You guys did the heavy lifting, all the hard work. You guys are the ones that earned this award, not I, and I realize that. Thanks for all the view, favs, and comments. It's been a great year. 

 Cheers, Wayne Pinkston

A Perfect Night by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: A Perfect Night for Photography in the Valley of Dreams East, In the New Mexico Badlands. There was a lot of airglow in one area of the sky, adding a lot of color. You can see how bizarre the landscape is, a very alien and otherworldly place. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy!  Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Balanced Rock by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Balanced Rock in Arches National Park, Utah. There is a light panel creating some illumination on the foreground, and Balanced Rock itself is also partially lit by reflected light from a hand held halogen spotlight. This was shot with a Nikon 810A camera and a Nikon 14-24 mm lens at f 2.8, 30 sec, 14 mm, and ISO 6400. This night I was shooting with Eric Gail, an excellent photographer and now friend I met here on Flickr. Check out his wonderful gallery here: www.flickr.com/photos/dot21studios/ Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy!  Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Questions and Answers

What are some good places to shoot the Milky Way in the SW United States?

Question: I was wondering if you could offer up your recommendation on a getaway spot for Milky Way photography? Any issues at the national parks in Utah? I would travel either in June or September to avoid crowds....and hopefully a bunch of workshop photographers too. I loved wondering the beaches of the Pacific coast...I feel like I had them all to myself and access was relatively easy...and I'm trying to scope out locations for future trips that are the same....I don't want to be hiking 3 days into some crazy remote area for a milky way shot. Looking at your badlands shots and Joshua tree pics has me bouncing around with different options for sure. Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated. 

Answer: Overall Utah and the area has limitless possibilities for dark night skies and astrophotography. I'll tell you good spots for good foregrounds. All of the areas I mention are good for dark night skies.  Just as a generalization, when I go there to do astrophotography I literally chase the clear skies to maximize the number of clear shooting nights. I rent a car and drive to wherever the clearest skies are predicted for the next few days.  The rental companies probably hate me. I usually fly into Salt Lake City or Las Vegas. I have found that the eastern part of California (Sierra Nevada Mtns), Utah, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon(really,really dark), and the NW corner on New Mexico (N.M. Badlands) can have very different weather, so if one area gets a bad weather front there is a good chance that one of the others will have clear skies. The longest drive is to Eastern California, but it is doable if you are going to be there a few days.

Anyway, if one spot clouds up, like Utah, you can go off to California or New Mexico (or vice versa) and have lots to photograph there.

Here are some ideas:

Utah:

 Arches National Park has wonderful iconic landmarks to photograph, and the good part is that there are lots of good spots that are relatively close together. May and June are best. Arches NP is getting crowded at night, but the only really "zoo" like scene is at Delicate Arch. I went there last summer and almost witnessed a fight. The other iconic places like Double Arch, Broken Arch, Balanced Rock, Landscape Arch, etc., do not get as much night traffic. Sometimes I see one other person there. Sometimes there are workshops, but you just go to another location to avoid them. There are lots of less well known arches that you will have to yourself.

My favorite park at night is Bryce Canyon NP. Occasionally you will see someone else out at night near the trailheads but you usually have the area to yourself. The trails are easy, and you can make endless photo ops. Shoot one spot and walk 200 meters and shoot another. Great place.

Zion NP is also excellent at night.

False Kiva in Canyonlands NP is a good spot, but it is about a 2 km hike in.

Goblin Valley State Park is a fun spot to photograph for a night. 

 In SE area of Utah is a place called the Valley of the Gods, a little visited area that has excellent buttes and mesas to film at night. Just south of the Valley of the Gods is Monument Valley, a classic spot. You have to get permission from the Navajo Indians to go out at night there.

Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument has really good stuff to photograph at night but it is really spread out. There is lots of driving involved there. Good spots: Sunset Arch, Chimney Rock, The Devils Garden, Metate Arch, The Toadstools, Dance Hall Rock, etc. The Wave is good if you can get a permit.

Northern Arizona: 

 North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Try Imperial Point and Bright Angel Point and Cape Royal. They face in the right direction to see the Milky Way. Monument Valley is excellent.

Northwest New Mexico: 

I love the New Mexico Badlands. The chance you will see someone else there at night is pretty close to zero. You may have to hike up to about 3 km or 2 miles or so in one direction at most, usually less. There are no trails so you need a GPS device to avoid getting lost, or maybe just less lost. I just use an app on my phone. The Bisti Badlands, about 30 miles or 50 km or so south of Farmington are great. There are many photo ops in a small place. Also good are the Valley of Dreams (with a hoodoo called the Alien Throne), the Valley of Dreams East, an area with a hoodoo called the King of Wings, and a nearby area called Ah-shi-sie-pah. All of these areas are in the same general vicinity, within a 1 hour drive. In the Badlands, once you get into the good ares there are numerous good photo ops. I get the GPS coordinates of the specific spots I want to visit ahead of time. Here are some links:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zJCKjjljTPpw.kTu66ZH6E1zQ&hl=en_US

http://www.thewave.info/AhShiSlePah/index.html

http://www.thewave.info/BistiBadlandsCode/Map.html

Eastern California:

 In Eastern California there is a long valley that extends from North to South with the Sierra Nevada range to the West and the White Mountains to the East. There are a lot of great places to do night photography there.

 Near the Northern End of this area is Lake Mono, a very "otherworldly" place with lots of large spires called Tuffas rising up from the lake bed. 

Going south you get to the area of Bishop, Ca. where you can go to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, a great place at night.

Still going south you get to Lone Pine, Ca., and the Alabama Hills, with a number of iconic spots, like Mobius Arch and Cyclops Arch. Lots of movies were shot here.

Still going south you come to Ridgecrest, Ca, and the nearby Trona Pinnacles. This is another place with an unusual otherworldly landscape. A number of movies were shot here also.

Still going south you get to Joshua Tree NP. There is some light pollution there but I have come away with decent photos.

Still going south you come to Borrego Springs, Ca. Outside the town there are 140+ life sized metal statues or works of art scattered through the desert, like dinosaurs, mammoths, dragons, and many other ancient and current animals. These are fun to photograph at night with the MW in the background. You can create an interesting atmosphere. Check this link for sn ides of what you might see:

https://www.google.com/search?q=borrego+springs+statues+night&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2g4mm5oHKAhVEzGMKHfOdAaQQ_AUIBygB&biw=1398&bih=1285

Also, just east of the Alabama Hills is Death Valley NP with very dark skies.

Cheers, Wayne Pinkston,  2015

Perspective and a Time to be Thankful by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: There is a petrified tree in the foreground lying horizontally on a small hoodoo, located in the Bisti Badlands on New Mexico. 70 million years ago this was a wet and swampy area along a river delta emptying into an inland sea. The area was eventually covered with sandstone, mudstone, shale, and coal. The sea receded, and was left undisturbed for 50 million years. Water from the last Ice Age helped to erode the layers and create hoodoo and expose petrified trees and fossils. This petrified tree is older than the entire history of humanity. The dinosaurs walked the earth in the time of this tree. Great seas and rivers and ice ages have come and gone in that time. The shape and coastlines of the continents have come and gone, and the continents have moved. Mountains have risen and fallen. And then humans showed up, virtually yesterday, in the big scheme of things. Some of the simplest things we take for granted have taken eons to create. The planet we live on is a wonderland of beauty. This is one of the many things to be thankful for. Cheers, Wayne Pinkston 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

Lost in a Dream... by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Hoodoo in the Valley of Dreams East, in the Badlands region of NW New Mexico.

Winged Hoodoo in the Bisti Badlands by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Winged Hoodoo in the Bisti Badlands, New Mexico. There is a marvelous variety of hoodoos in the badlands. Over millennia sedimentary rocks of different hardness were laid down, and the softer lower layers erode faster than the harder upper layers, resulting in unusual shapes. I accidentally left a light on in the back canyon, and did not realize it until the photo came up on the display, but I think it added to the appearance. This is a single exposure. 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

Dreaming... by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Valley of Dreams, in the Badlands of NW New Mexico. The hoodoos are mostly mudstone hoodoos, with a softer clay like base and a harder rocky cap. This was taken with a Nikon 14-24 mm lens at 15 mm, f 2.8, 25 sec., and ISO 12,800. This is a single exposure. 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

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

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

Hi Can you just prepare tutorial about how to edit milkyway? Also if possible can you share the camera and EXIF? All your milky way photos are amazing. Thanks in advance.

Hi, and thanks for looking at my page. I have already made a “blog” describing how I process the Milky Way and you can find it on my web site here;

http://lightcrafter.smugmug.com/About-Nightscapes

Just scroll down until you see “About Processing” and you are there!

Hope this helps,

Wayne

Solitude in the Bisti Badlands by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is a small a wash or small valley,ravine in the Bisti Badlands of New Mexico, located in the NW section of N.M. near Farmington. I took this in a attempt to give a representation of what most of the landscape looks like. There are numerous small valley-like washes like this, intermixed with flat areas with numerous small to medium sized Hoodoos. Many of those ridges are steep enough to be tricky to climb over, and so you go around and around to get by them. It is impossible to walk in a straight line. There are no paths and so it is easy to get lost. A GPS device is a must! It beautiful and erie scenery though, and well worth a visit. This was taken with a Canon 6D, and a Nikon 14`24 mm lens at 14 mm, f 2.8, 30 seconds, and ISO 6400. This is a single exposure. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Your time, faves, and comments are much appreciated! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Questions and Answers:

What color is the night sky?

Question: (more like a comment) Great composition and exposure, but the Milky Way is not blue, the color balance is not correct. 

http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/color.of.the.night.sky/

Answer: Thanks for looking, and thanks for the comment. Much appreciated. 

What color is the night sky? Excellent article you mentioned:

www.clarkvision.com/articles/color.of.the.night.sky/

I have been thinking about writing about this for a while, so thanks for stimulating me. Please bear with me for a few minutes.I have had this conversation multiple times, actually being on both sides of the argument. It took me a long time to come to a conclusion on how I wanted to present the night sky. 

I actually agree with you entirely, the darkest night sky is a warmer color physically, but...

There is a difference between:

1) What color the night sky really is optically (we cannot see the real colors because our night vision is mostly B&W). 

2) What we perceive the night sky color to be (our eyes are poor receptors at night), and what our eyes actually perceive is not what we may remember or what the colors really are. By the way, different people have somewhat differing ability to see color at night.

3) and what we remember the color of the night sky to be. 

For events that we see repeatedly, like looking at the night sky (or going to the beach, etc.), it has been shown that we do not remember every detail in every instance of looking at the night sky. We may remember the meteor we saw that night, but our memory fills in the background details, like the color of the night sky, the smell of night air or desert air, the feel of chill on your skin, etc., with a combined memory of conglomeration of all the night skies we have seen. When you replay the memory in your mind you remember the unique details, and the background is filled in from averaged memories. 

So... if you think about it, most people see most night skies in light polluted places or with a moon in the sky, all of which makes the sky lighter and bluer. The moon is above us more often than not, and lightens the sky, and that is what we mostly remember, a bluish sky.When I started out I thought the night sky was black. 

When I got out there in the really dark places, it was not black. I look at photos with black skies and that is not what I see out there. Never. The sky also never looks brown to me, unless there is smoke on the horizon. It never looks brown. As I stand out there for hours and hours, it looks to me to be a deep blue tending towards back. It mostly looks "dark" in away that is hard to explain.

I have processed them every way you can think of, including like in the article you quoted. It's actually a lot easier that way. When you make the Milky Way warmer and yellow brown (forget about airglow for now), the background sky, especially near the horizon frequently turns brownish. It has never looked that way to me in person, in weeks and weeks of being out at night. It just looks unnatural to me. 

So what do you do? Well, the answer in photo circles seems to be you do just about anything you want.

Once I got in a discussion with a very famous and respected photographer about the color of the sky. At that time I was arguing the point from the view you take. I finally asked what color is the night sky?His answer was "any color I want it to be". It bothered me at first, but less over time. 

So, do you want to make a photo that is true to physics, but is not what anyone can ever see (and at times may be ugly), or make an idealized view of the sky, or simply try to make a work of art, or something people can identify with?

It is a question each person has to answer for themselves, and the answer will be different each time. 

For me, I decided, for now, to try to make a work of art that people can identify with. Next year my choice may be different.

Cheers, and thanks for stimulating me to finally write this down!

Wayne Pinkston

After Midnight Landscapes: This is a video made for fun to show some photos from my website. I liked the upbeat music. This will take about 3 minutes of your time. Enjoy! As seen on You Tube:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2zAFserk0c

Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pinks2000/19324861534