20:08 Align foreground and background 22:45 Rough blend between foreground and background 25:06 Color Selection for precision blending 28:15 Burn foreground mask 33:55 Fix shadow cast by foreground objects (tree) 38:00 Curves adjustment for Milky Way 39:26 Star Reduction 43:10 Hi-Pass 45:48 Dodge & Burn Milky Way 49:20 Match brightness of foreground to background 54:30 Dodge & Burn foreground 57:15 Curves color balance 58:22 Bring back H-Alpha hue/sat/vibrance 1:02:50 Fix up brightness/contrast overall 1:06:40 Unsharp Mask
Hey John, really nice work mate. You've certainly got that post production down to a fine art and I know that will help a lot of people out for sure. Keep up the great work.
John, this is a brilliant tutorial. I have been following Richard Tatti for a long time and through a recent video where he mentioned you. You are now on my following list and I will be going through your other videos. Thank you very much for your time and effort in sharing this information, it is certainly very much appreciated from me, I will be trying to use this in same of my images.
I really appreciate this John. You do several things that I didn't know about - the color selection and then adding to the mask for one. I also like the subtleness of each adjustment and how they add together. Thank you so much for creating this.
John, I appreciate the old school techniques and dedication to keep things realistic. I haven’t done any complex editing of this level to comment on what I might do differently. I’m taking it all in though and am thankful for your efforts in putting this together!
Hi John, A tour de force of the editing process which is much appreciated. I look forward to meeting up with you soon to get the finer details of the tracking and editing nailed down. Great instructional RUclips video.
John - Excellent video!! Thank you very much. I'm not a PS, nor PTGui expert at all, so I was traveling down the same path for compositing, staggering from lamppost to lamppost - making all the mistakes. This video will save me a lot of time and frustration. I shoot with a Pentax K1 using their internal astro tracking capability - which is perfect for 70 second exposures. This provides me with very natural looking MW shots, and I do a lot of panos. At 70, the less gear I need to lug around with me, the better. Also, I don't have to polar align - the camera body's GPS/electronic compass 1 minute calibration takes all of this in to account. PTGui's technical forum suggested to stitch sky and foreground separately - which I have always done in the past. I was looking to PTGui's masking function to help with the final stitch. They suggested a slightly different approach. Import into PTGui both the sky and foreground individual stitched images. Then, .... "You need to employ individual lens shift parameters and use them to shift the images vertically to bring the horizon to their correct matching positions across the centre line of the Panorama Editor window. Then you can get the optimizer to fine tune the alignment using control points. Having aligned the images, you can output a .PSB layered file and blend them together in Photoshop." I haven't tried this yet, as I am still putting my desktop tower back together.... Just another aside - PTGui consumes every ounce of a graphics card that it can find. I pulled out my old $35 graphics card. My son's work was ordering about 100 new RTX 3080 cards (for their workstations), and opened up the order for employees if they wanted one for themselves at home. They wound up ordering 300 - which gave them a better price break. My son sent me his old RTX 1060. That will make my linear panorama (multi viewpoint architecture) stitching work a lot easier and quicker. The older (and cheaper - actually my son just gave it to me, I can't argue with free [as in beer]) graphics cards will still work with PTGui very well and accelerate the processing. I spent a lot of time with Affinity Photo trying to stitch and composite - it just didn't work out well at all. AP needs some time to mature. ICE and LR are ok for small image web posting - but in terms of printing, just does not cut it at all. I also spent a lot of time trying to decide between AutoPano and PTGui. With AutoPano being pulled from the market, PTGui was my only choice - and I believe the correct one. The only down side is that there are not a lot of tutorial videos on the finer points of PTGui. Also, I came across this YT video, not for the approach or workflow, but for the additional explanations of PTGui tools and uses -- ruclips.net/video/ZR5R6tPXQsY/видео.html The bottom line is that your video is pretty unique in terms of pulling the entire process, approach and workflow in particular with regards to compositing together - all in one place. This is going to save my sanity.
Thanks a lot for this mate! I'll try this out as soon a possible. In terms of software I completely agree with your analogy. For anyone reading the comments and is not willing to dish out the PTGui license fee, there's the Hugin stitcher which is very similar to PTGui in function; albeit a bit clunky to use.
Hi John, completely new to the channel and loads of really useful tips and workflow ideas there. Thanks for taking the time to work through it so methodically. This is my first season of shooting the milky way, and I have a few panos under my belt that will definitely benefit from improved post processing. Looking forward to putting this into practice. All the best with the channel. Paul
Hey John , you have some great info here Ive just come across your channel and am so inspired by your work. Ive messed around in astro for a while and seemed to have bogged down and lost a bit of interest. recently have gotten a star tracker and now need to practice with it hopefully get to the stage of full arch millyway. Thanks keeps for sharing your knowledge and look forward to seeing more of what you know
Wow John that final image! Magbloominificent! This video was great from start to finish, I really enjoyed it I just need to try and figure out how to do the same thing in Capture One! Have you considered approaching PTGui and asking them to become an ambassador as I think your images are more than worthy mate and you could get an affiliate link going for your channel if you've not already done so, hope you don't mind the suggestion. The dodge and burn of the hillsides I found really helpful as you added the highlights on the ridges and darkened the valleys, fully agree on the horizon comment too, and I liked how you had that gradual darkening throughout the image back to a darker horizon, lots to take in but I think this is a reference video mate one to keep coming back to! Great job John keep them coming!
I have never seen the Dodge and Burn trick on the mask. That is awesome! Lots of great tips and pointers. Thank you. I am the type of person who switches hobbies a bit so I try not to invest a lot of money into toys. This will be my second astro season. I built a barn door tracker last year and I think I was not properly aligned on the polar axis. I switched to stacking frames which was good but not the clear images of a tracked image. I hope this season will go better with better alignment, a more rigid tracker, and a second hand full frame camera. Cheers!
thanks John that was helpful. Learned a few things there and hope to make good use of what I learned. I am a total newbie to Milky Way photography, but am a seasoned very experienced Photoshop user. I do know many other tips and tricks which I look forward to using in my editing. First however - I have yet to capture my first Milky Way images. Just as I am waiting for the bright moon to disappear in the coming week or so, the wet cloudy weather has moved in! Who knows if I will get the chance I am looking for in the coming dark sky phase. I got my MSM Star Tracker a couple of days ago and learning how to set that up and use it, but it's just waiting for the opportunity to get out there and get started.
Hi John, Great videos on taking and editing tracked panoramic images. learnt a lot of new tricks especially in the dodge and burn tool. I have a question about the lens you used. I have the same lens but in Canon EF mount with an AE chip and I find it has very noticeable coma and chromatic aberrations in the corners, even stopped down to f2.8. Does yours display the same issues, or do i have a poor sample? I use a Sigma MC11 to mount it on a sony A7R3 and and also on my EOS R with EF-RF adapter. I bought it to use on a Star tracker and i am testing it on the tracker (Sydney lock down & weather permitting) to see at what f stop the aberrations disappear. Do you have any suggestions?
Great video John!! Thanks for the many good tips. I'll try them soon. I also follow the same pipeline, LR, PTGui and Photosh. My area is light polluted and I have to, some times, stretch the milky way to make it pop up. The problem is that I then start seeing the transitions between images (from PTGui). Sometimes I see it in textures, sometimes with the line separating images, with less stars, or with the luminosity. Any tip for solving that? Have you also found this problem? PTGui Pro, also gives the same trabsition problem. Anyway, great tutorial and looking forward to more videos!!!
I have seen this problem before, for me it was banding. I found that the more you try to stretch the data it starts showing these anomalies. I travel to dark skies and try not to push the data too far
I use the pro version as it can help with the masking feature but I used the standard version for a long time with great success, so if money is no option go the pro version
Great video John, really enjoyed seeing your workflow and the way you create your MW Panoramas! Just a couple of questions: 1) I thought that colors came off in Astromodified cameras and fine-tuning the WB was one of the first and most critical steps. That doesn't happen in your Astro Sony A7RII? 2) I used to apply the minimum star reduction following the similar process that you do but my images came out with a lot of side effects like moire and banding. Not sure if it's because I'm using high mpx camera like the Sony A7RIV. Did you ever find the same issue? Again, thanks so much for this incredible start to finish tutorial, and keep up the good work mate!
I have the WB set in camera custom so it does a pretty good job of been "good to go" if I had a standard WB I definitely would be doing coulor correction in post first thing. I have found some banding in the past but I believe it comes from stretching the data too far, not the star reduction. So if your doing a few curves and level stretches along with a high pass it brings out banding more, I definitely keep my eye on that when processing and try not to push things too far
Hello, this is a very helpful video, thank you for that! I have a question to the panorama program: Do you use PTGui Pro or is the cheaper version (PTGui) enough to stitch the milkyway panorma as you did?
I'm surprised you don't turn off your color noise reduction in LR at the start as well, I've noticed it mutes the colors a little bit! Okay, I'm only 8 minutes in so now I'm gonna keep watching :)
just finished, really amazing video!! One tip I have while scaling is hold down alt so the layer stays in the same place but the edges get pulled in towards the center so that you don't have to keep juggling it back and forth as you scale the sides. Your tip about dodging and burning the layer mask to clean up the selection is super useful, never thought to try that out.
You mentioned a modified A7RII that your using. I wanted to modify one of my Sony cameras which is an A7RII and leave the A7RIII normal. I was told by Spencer's Camera that the R series Sony cameras have a light leak if you try to modify them. Where did you have your camera done?
what was the Bortle rating? I live near Newcastle, the Upon Tyne one, not the NSW one, I am 40-60 minutes from a 3-4 but due to weather shot at a 4-5 location and the difference was surprising. Hope to travel to Scottish Highlands in the autumn for Bortle 1
@@johnrutterphotography cheers, just back from a 4am Bortle 3 panorama on Northumberland coast. unfortunately the Newcastle light pollution was on the southern horizon exactly where the core was.
Hi big bro. Your videos are beautiful. Photojournalists using trackers need to know the technique of combining the ground and the sky photo very well. That's why I watch your video over and over again. There's something I'm curious about. In Photoshop 2021, the sky in the photo changes automatically, why didn't you use this feature? Is there a reason for that? Is his technique better with the mask you make? Which is better if we compare the technique you make with the sky-changing technique that is automatically done in Photoshop?
A couple of reasons, 1. Less rows makes it easier and 2. And I want to make sure I can get the horizon in a single row. This becomes more apparent when stepping up focal lengths
20:08 Align foreground and background
22:45 Rough blend between foreground and background
25:06 Color Selection for precision blending
28:15 Burn foreground mask
33:55 Fix shadow cast by foreground objects (tree)
38:00 Curves adjustment for Milky Way
39:26 Star Reduction
43:10 Hi-Pass
45:48 Dodge & Burn Milky Way
49:20 Match brightness of foreground to background
54:30 Dodge & Burn foreground
57:15 Curves color balance
58:22 Bring back H-Alpha hue/sat/vibrance
1:02:50 Fix up brightness/contrast overall
1:06:40 Unsharp Mask
Great idea! Thankyou
@@johnrutterphotography Haha, no problem. I kept scrolling through the video for specific parts, so I just whipped this up real quick
Hey John, really nice work mate. You've certainly got that post production down to a fine art and I know that will help a lot of people out for sure. Keep up the great work.
Thanks Richard. I appreciate that mate 👍
John, this is a brilliant tutorial. I have been following Richard Tatti for a long time and through a recent video where he mentioned you. You are now on my following list and I will be going through your other videos. Thank you very much for your time and effort in sharing this information, it is certainly very much appreciated from me, I will be trying to use this in same of my images.
Thanks mate, Richard is a great guy and teacher. Thanks for following along
I really appreciate this John. You do several things that I didn't know about - the color selection and then adding to the mask for one. I also like the subtleness of each adjustment and how they add together. Thank you so much for creating this.
Your welcome.
Good Job John, this video and the one about shooting tracked panoramas, are what I was searching for in a long time.
Thanks mate, I'm glad to hear it's helped out 👍
John, I appreciate the old school techniques and dedication to keep things realistic. I haven’t done any complex editing of this level to comment on what I might do differently. I’m taking it all in though and am thankful for your efforts in putting this together!
My pleasure mate, hopefully this helps take that first step in more complex editing.
Hi John, A tour de force of the editing process which is much appreciated. I look forward to meeting up with you soon to get the finer details of the tracking and editing nailed down. Great instructional RUclips video.
Thanks Geoff, hopefully this helped till the skies are clear enough to catch up. 👍
Some good editing tricks with the color selection and the dodge and burn. I learnt a few useful bits mate. Subscribed.
Awesome mate, glad u got something out of it. Thanks for the support
Great video mate! Thanks
Your welcome
Fantastic tutorial thank you John.
Your welcome lynne
Thanks for the Masterclass
My pleasure mate
That was great thanks. Learned a lot. Selecting the ground and sky is a real key.
My pleasure Douglas, accurately masking the foreground is paramount
John - Excellent video!! Thank you very much. I'm not a PS, nor PTGui expert at all, so I was traveling down the same path for compositing, staggering from lamppost to lamppost - making all the mistakes. This video will save me a lot of time and frustration. I shoot with a Pentax K1 using their internal astro tracking capability - which is perfect for 70 second exposures. This provides me with very natural looking MW shots, and I do a lot of panos. At 70, the less gear I need to lug around with me, the better. Also, I don't have to polar align - the camera body's GPS/electronic compass 1 minute calibration takes all of this in to account.
PTGui's technical forum suggested to stitch sky and foreground separately - which I have always done in the past. I was looking to PTGui's masking function to help with the final stitch. They suggested a slightly different approach. Import into PTGui both the sky and foreground individual stitched images. Then, .... "You need to employ individual lens shift parameters and use them to shift the images vertically to bring the horizon to their correct matching positions across the centre line of the Panorama Editor window. Then you can get the optimizer to fine tune the alignment using control points. Having aligned the images, you can output a .PSB layered file and blend them together in Photoshop." I haven't tried this yet, as I am still putting my desktop tower back together....
Just another aside - PTGui consumes every ounce of a graphics card that it can find. I pulled out my old $35 graphics card. My son's work was ordering about 100 new RTX 3080 cards (for their workstations), and opened up the order for employees if they wanted one for themselves at home. They wound up ordering 300 - which gave them a better price break. My son sent me his old RTX 1060. That will make my linear panorama (multi viewpoint architecture) stitching work a lot easier and quicker. The older (and cheaper - actually my son just gave it to me, I can't argue with free [as in beer]) graphics cards will still work with PTGui very well and accelerate the processing.
I spent a lot of time with Affinity Photo trying to stitch and composite - it just didn't work out well at all. AP needs some time to mature. ICE and LR are ok for small image web posting - but in terms of printing, just does not cut it at all. I also spent a lot of time trying to decide between AutoPano and PTGui. With AutoPano being pulled from the market, PTGui was my only choice - and I believe the correct one. The only down side is that there are not a lot of tutorial videos on the finer points of PTGui.
Also, I came across this YT video, not for the approach or workflow, but for the additional explanations of PTGui tools and uses -- ruclips.net/video/ZR5R6tPXQsY/видео.html
The bottom line is that your video is pretty unique in terms of pulling the entire process, approach and workflow in particular with regards to compositing together - all in one place. This is going to save my sanity.
Thank you very much for your hard work on divulgating your techniques! Certainly helps a lot when you are a beginner!
Your welcome, glad to hear it helps.
Thank you for this amazing tutorial! I've done a ton of non-tracked panoramas and would like to get into tracked ones, so this was really helpful!🙌🏼
No worries mate, because you have done plenty of non tracked panos, the transition into tracked ones will be easy for you.
Great tutorial, John. Keep em coming :D.
I like your selection and masking clean up. Great info thanx.
My pleasure 👍
I needed this, Thank you for a very useful tutorial. Legend
Glad it helped mate 👍
Thanks a lot for this mate! I'll try this out as soon a possible. In terms of software I completely agree with your analogy. For anyone reading the comments and is not willing to dish out the PTGui license fee, there's the Hugin stitcher which is very similar to PTGui in function; albeit a bit clunky to use.
Hi John, completely new to the channel and loads of really useful tips and workflow ideas there. Thanks for taking the time to work through it so methodically. This is my first season of shooting the milky way, and I have a few panos under my belt that will definitely benefit from improved post processing. Looking forward to putting this into practice. All the best with the channel. Paul
My pleasure Paul. Welcome to cold sleepless nights. 😄👍
Great video, really informative. Cheers!
Cheers mate, glad you enjoyed it
Dude you are a legend, thankyou.
Cheers mate!
What an informative video.. looking forward to more content... can’t wait to go out and try here in the northern hemisphere.
Thanks mate👍
This was so helpful thank you!
Amazing content right here!
Thanks mate 👍
Thanks. I learned a ton.
My pleasure John
Incredible editing
Cheers mate, glad you enjoyed it
Hey John , you have some great info here Ive just come across your channel and am so inspired by your work. Ive messed around in astro for a while and seemed to have bogged down and lost a bit of interest. recently have gotten a star tracker and now need to practice with it hopefully get to the stage of full arch millyway. Thanks keeps for sharing your knowledge and look forward to seeing more of what you know
I appreciate the comments Ren, glad to hear it's helped with motivation.
Top notch mate, really well done
Cheers mate 🙏
Wow John that final image! Magbloominificent!
This video was great from start to finish, I really enjoyed it I just need to try and figure out how to do the same thing in Capture One! Have you considered approaching PTGui and asking them to become an ambassador as I think your images are more than worthy mate and you could get an affiliate link going for your channel if you've not already done so, hope you don't mind the suggestion.
The dodge and burn of the hillsides I found really helpful as you added the highlights on the ridges and darkened the valleys, fully agree on the horizon comment too, and I liked how you had that gradual darkening throughout the image back to a darker horizon, lots to take in but I think this is a reference video mate one to keep coming back to! Great job John keep them coming!
I have never seen the Dodge and Burn trick on the mask. That is awesome! Lots of great tips and pointers. Thank you. I am the type of person who switches hobbies a bit so I try not to invest a lot of money into toys. This will be my second astro season. I built a barn door tracker last year and I think I was not properly aligned on the polar axis. I switched to stacking frames which was good but not the clear images of a tracked image. I hope this season will go better with better alignment, a more rigid tracker, and a second hand full frame camera. Cheers!
Thanks Jim. Hopefully you can nail down polar alignment
Thank you big bro. Amazing a video.
Thanks mate 👍
thanks John that was helpful. Learned a few things there and hope to make good use of what I learned. I am a total newbie to Milky Way photography, but am a seasoned very experienced Photoshop user. I do know many other tips and tricks which I look forward to using in my editing. First however - I have yet to capture my first Milky Way images. Just as I am waiting for the bright moon to disappear in the coming week or so, the wet cloudy weather has moved in! Who knows if I will get the chance I am looking for in the coming dark sky phase. I got my MSM Star Tracker a couple of days ago and learning how to set that up and use it, but it's just waiting for the opportunity to get out there and get started.
I will be doing a video on the MSM very soon
Well done John! What a monster of a video! I've definitely taken some great tips away from this!!
Cheers Andy, definitely was a long one. Glad u got something out of it mate👍
33:01 press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E. On a Mac, press Shift+Command+Option+E. had to google this part can only be done with a 'secret shortcut' apparently 👍
Yes you can use the shortcut you mentioned or select merge visible of the layers.
Hi John , very nice image , great info on editing . Shame about the shit weather that has plagued us on the east coast , keep up the good work mate.
Thanks mate, it's definitely been a slow start to the season, we can only hope it improves
THANKYOU...
Your welcome 🙏
Hi John, Great videos on taking and editing tracked panoramic images. learnt a lot of new tricks especially in the dodge and burn tool.
I have a question about the lens you used. I have the same lens but in Canon EF mount with an AE chip and I find it has very noticeable coma and chromatic aberrations in the corners, even stopped down to f2.8. Does yours display the same issues, or do i have a poor sample?
I use a Sigma MC11 to mount it on a sony A7R3 and and also on my EOS R with EF-RF adapter.
I bought it to use on a Star tracker and i am testing it on the tracker (Sydney lock down & weather permitting) to see at what f stop the aberrations disappear. Do you have any suggestions?
Free option that is much better than LR and PS. Microsoft ICE. Nice tutorial mate.
I have never used that one, might have to give it a test some time
Great video John!! Thanks for the many good tips. I'll try them soon. I also follow the same pipeline, LR, PTGui and Photosh. My area is light polluted and I have to, some times, stretch the milky way to make it pop up. The problem is that I then start seeing the transitions between images (from PTGui). Sometimes I see it in textures, sometimes with the line separating images, with less stars, or with the luminosity. Any tip for solving that? Have you also found this problem? PTGui Pro, also gives the same trabsition problem. Anyway, great tutorial and looking forward to more videos!!!
I have seen this problem before, for me it was banding. I found that the more you try to stretch the data it starts showing these anomalies. I travel to dark skies and try not to push the data too far
Very helpful as always, John. Do you recommend/use PTGUI pro or the standard version? Which do you recommend?
I use the pro version as it can help with the masking feature but I used the standard version for a long time with great success, so if money is no option go the pro version
@@johnrutterphotography - I really appreciate how you are responsive to your community. Thank you.
Great video John, really enjoyed seeing your workflow and the way you create your MW Panoramas! Just a couple of questions:
1) I thought that colors came off in Astromodified cameras and fine-tuning the WB was one of the first and most critical steps. That doesn't happen in your Astro Sony A7RII?
2) I used to apply the minimum star reduction following the similar process that you do but my images came out with a lot of side effects like moire and banding. Not sure if it's because I'm using high mpx camera like the Sony A7RIV. Did you ever find the same issue?
Again, thanks so much for this incredible start to finish tutorial, and keep up the good work mate!
I have the WB set in camera custom so it does a pretty good job of been "good to go" if I had a standard WB I definitely would be doing coulor correction in post first thing.
I have found some banding in the past but I believe it comes from stretching the data too far, not the star reduction. So if your doing a few curves and level stretches along with a high pass it brings out banding more, I definitely keep my eye on that when processing and try not to push things too far
@@johnrutterphotography Thanks!! It'd be nice to see a video of how you deal with the WB and set your Custom WB in an Astro modified camera ;)
Hello, this is a very helpful video, thank you for that!
I have a question to the panorama program: Do you use PTGui Pro or is the cheaper version (PTGui) enough to stitch the milkyway panorma as you did?
Hey Lisa, I currently use ptgui pro, as it has some great added features, but you could get away with the standard version
I'm surprised you don't turn off your color noise reduction in LR at the start as well, I've noticed it mutes the colors a little bit! Okay, I'm only 8 minutes in so now I'm gonna keep watching :)
just finished, really amazing video!! One tip I have while scaling is hold down alt so the layer stays in the same place but the edges get pulled in towards the center so that you don't have to keep juggling it back and forth as you scale the sides. Your tip about dodging and burning the layer mask to clean up the selection is super useful, never thought to try that out.
Great tip. Cheers mate
You mentioned a modified A7RII that your using. I wanted to modify one of my Sony cameras which is an A7RII and leave the A7RIII normal. I was told by Spencer's Camera that the R series Sony cameras have a light leak if you try to modify them. Where did you have your camera done?
It is disappointing that Spencer's say that. I have no leaks. Mine was modified by camera clinic in Melbourne
what was the Bortle rating? I live near Newcastle, the Upon Tyne one, not the NSW one, I am 40-60 minutes from a 3-4 but due to weather shot at a 4-5 location and the difference was surprising. Hope to travel to Scottish Highlands in the autumn for Bortle 1
That's a bortle 2 sky there. It makes a massive difference to get to dark skies! It's the easiest way to improve your images
@@johnrutterphotography cheers, just back from a 4am Bortle 3 panorama on Northumberland coast. unfortunately the Newcastle light pollution was on the southern horizon exactly where the core was.
You didn't mention it but I assume you also processed the 10 foreground images in Ptgui and thus created the foreground image file.
That's correct. 👍
Hi big bro. Your videos are beautiful. Photojournalists using trackers need to know the technique of combining the ground and the sky photo very well. That's why I watch your video over and over again. There's something I'm curious about. In Photoshop 2021, the sky in the photo changes automatically, why didn't you use this feature? Is there a reason for that? Is his technique better with the mask you make?
Which is better if we compare the technique you make with the sky-changing technique that is automatically done in Photoshop?
I find the automatic sky replacement hit and miss so I just do it manually
@@johnrutterphotography Thank you for information big bro
do you use the pro or the normal version of this software?
I use the pro version. I did use the standard version for a long time but the masking feature of the pro is worth it 👌
@@johnrutterphotography Thank you very much 😊
why do you shoot your panoramas in portrait as opposed to landscape?
A couple of reasons, 1. Less rows makes it easier and 2. And I want to make sure I can get the horizon in a single row. This becomes more apparent when stepping up focal lengths