Nice and very helpful. This will reduce my production time. Please keep making these quality tutorials. In the end we will all be making better art. Anyone can take a picture. It's the processing and painting with light that makes it art. I learned old school with film in a darkroom. Enlarging, cropping, dodging and burning in is what made Ansel Adams B&W images pop. Same is still true in the digital dark room.
Another brilliant tutorial Mike - thank you. I am making good progress with my astro photos and have fingers crossed for dark skies later this week. I will make sure to take multiple images like you did here, for sky and foreground, and try this out. many thanks again David
wonderful tutorial!! got a question! How would it be to use dark frames to clean up even more of the foreground? is that a better option or just taking more light frames is better?
Great question! So I found that dark frames took more time with very minimal results for nightscape photography. You are better off just taking more light frames to get more dynamic range. Dark frames are more beneficial for DEEP SPACE photography, so if you ever decide to get into photographing some Nebulas or distant galaxies then for sure take some dark frames.
Hi Mike, great tutorial (as always), the last step has really helped, and found ever with no lower ISO images it cleaned them up to a certain extent although reduces the sharpness, guess it always that trade off. More practice required. Thank you for sharing, regards Andrew
Thank you for watching!! Another option to get sharper / cleaner images is to take the foreground at astronomical twilight. Then wait for the milky way to come out and blend the twilight foreground with the milky way. If you dont move your camera it's easier to align the images.
Great video. Straight to the point and very valuable info. Just curious, why don't I remove hot pixels on my foreground image first, before blending with milky way tracked image? I am new to blending, so just want to make sure if there is some disadvantage to that approach, because it will prevent creating additional mask on Background copy 2.
You can absolutely do it prior to blending the foreground with the sky. Sometimes I do it with the blended sky because I remove some of the stars as well to show more of the star dust in the milky way!
It mainly depends on how close I am to a foreground feature. If I'm shooting with an ultra wide lens then typically I stay in infinity but if I am using a 35mm for example I would have to focus on the foreground and the stars separately (unless it a large canyon, mountain or ravine far in the distance then i wouldn't).
For sure! The order of operation is more efficient that way. I want people to see what happens to the stars when you use dust and scratches and how to create a mask to avoid certain areas in a photo, but absolutely you can use it prior to blending your sky. Some people like to actually reduce the number of stars in the sky with dust and scratches to show off more of the star dust in the Milky Way so if you plan on experimenting with that then you may want to do it at the end of your edit.
Since I used an ultra wide lens I did not need to refocused, so I shot them at infinity. Depending on the focal length you are using and how far away you are from your foreground subject will determine if you need to refocus or not. I rarely ever refocus my foregrounds.
Yes, that typically what I do. I stack my images and just save that TIFF file (unprocessed). Then I do my edits with a copy of that file. I always save that unprocessed image in case I decide to go back and retry a new edit technique. But you are right, it would take up a lot of space to keep all the raw files for each stack so I get rid of them after stacking. Thanks for watching!
Gabe Schiff-Verre there are camp grounds in the area but technically you can’t camp at Sand Beach if that’s the beach you are referring to. The park rangers will probably give you crap if they see you camping in Acadia. You might be able to get a backcountry permit to camp in the park though.
Milky Way Mike Oh man, all campgrounds are closed in the park and all campgrounds booked. Was hoping to camp on Little hunter for some milky shots. I’ll figure it out thanks! Check out my IG for pics! @road_lesstraveled_
.you are so amazing and Inspirational, I have two questions if you can help me, sir If the humidity is 10% does this effect on the milky way photo? do you put any kind of filters on the lens? do you activate or not the (mirror lockup mode ) and the (VR-button) while taking a shoot for the milky way?
Humidity could make some haze or clouds, but I usually just focus on the clouds coverage. Check 2 or 3 news sources and look for clear or mostly clear skies. I don't use any filters for my MW shots, however their are some out there which can help enhance the Magenta in the Milky Way that you may want to google since I have yet to use them. Don't use VR while using a tripod, it can actually create a blurry photo. Sometimes I use mirror lock up mode but it's not really necessary on a sturdy tripod. Mirror lock up boils down to experience with your gear and for long exposures it is good practice to use it if you want (but not necessary). Key ingredients for a good milky way shot is.. the lens (and focusing it at night), sturdy tripod and an intervalometer!
Hi Mike, do you have to use starry landscape stacker if you have landscape in the photo? I used deep sky stacker and was planning on using photoshop to blend in the landscape. I'm not too worried about the foreground because it was a treeline off in the distance. Thanks!
Sequator (pc) and starry landscape stacker (mac) typically are meant to be used with a foreground as the programs separate the foreground from the sky, then stack the images and then merges everything back together. I also have used starry landscape stacker with just Milky Way sky images and it stacked them no problem.
@@Milkywaymike Thank you for the response! I'm a new-comer to the astrophotography world and kind of a boomer when it comes to software programs. I am getting used to using Light Room for all my photo edits, but Photo Shop is another beast all together. BTW great content and easy to follow along.
Great tutorial, thank you. By the way, what if a human were to be in the foreground? I can't stand steady for 10 seconds let alone throughout such long exposures. Unsurprisingly, they appear like ghosts In the resulting images. How would you expose the foreground enough and sharp at the same time with any unsteady object in it?
I've done this very scenario in which I stacked images while standing in them. I do stand steady as can be for 10-15 seconds however their is still slight movement. So instead of stacking with "mean" mode I use "median" which helps with movement. You can see what I mean in more detail with this tutorial. Thanks! ruclips.net/video/kpWsIOKzmfs/видео.html
great job, you are a superman I'm in trouble I bought iOptron SkyTracker Pro without Ball Head I'd like to know what the name of Ball Head You are using? How much weight do you carry? 20 ib or more. Should we use an iOptron Ball Head or any Ball Head depend on How much weight do you carry?
Pretty much any ballhead will do the trick.. I like ballheads that are arca swiss compatible since I use a L Bracket on my camera body. Something like this should be fine -it's arca swiss compatible and can hold up to nearly 20lbs. amzn.to/2KqAnnn The heaviest lens I have is a tamron 150-600mm which attached to my nikon D810 comes out to be around 8 LBS... Here is a smaller ballhead by the same company that holds around 14lbs. amzn.to/2LZV4v6 They both seem to have good reviews and are not too expensive.
Great tutorial, I have a question regarding foreground shots. Couldn’t you just drop the ISO down to something like 400 or maybe even less and shoot 1 longer exposure then blend that image with your stacked sky rather than have to do multiple foreground shots at ISO 2500?
Yes you can do that… I was under a time constraint so I increased the ISO. So if I shot those at iso 100-400 the exposure would have been 10 minutes or longer to gather in enough light. Other people are in the area so this risks light pollution from others with headlamps or flashlights
Thanks for the reply Mike. Can I ask for your 4 foreground photos in this video (hopefully you still remember) were they all the same aperture and ISO 2500 with just a mixture of 4 different shutter speeds i.e. you didn’t adjust aperture/ISO to correct exposure for shutter speed and the stacking of these 4 different exposures is what reduces the foreground noise?
IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that your noise and sharpening settings are OFF! The program is designed to take out the random pixel noise, and by doing it in Lightroom before going into SLS you are significantly hindering the quality results it is designed to achieve, Also, the sharpening on will INCREASE Luminance noise in the image! AFTER the noise is removed with SLS THEN different noise and sharpening protocol can be used with great results, but the way shown here will harm the image a lot! Also you need to make sure White balance is equalized in all images, and the program works way better with 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 images! Not numbers in between these. Just a few critical tips to let your viewers know so they are not handicapping their files...
Thanks for the additional advice. I've tested out the number of exposures stacked with SLS for the best quality and after around 12 exposures the quality seems to be nearly identical as lets say 16 photos, even when pixel peeped at 200% . Not sure how you got SLS to stack 32, 64 or 128 image unless they were extremely short exposures I'm assuming. The program gives me errors for anything over the mid-twenty range but that is with an exposure of 13 or 15 seconds (this test I did when it first came out years ago so maybe they made changes since then). I'm assuming if your exposure is shorter and you get less movement in the sky then you can stack more photos..
@@Milkywaymike Yes, we are down to 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 8... I am making 6, 7, 8+ foot prints at high resolution with tact sharp and clean stars for fine art photography galleries. When I get into any serous enlargement (even 45 inches) I see big differences.
Hi Mike, i have a question about the file format before you export the files to Photoshop As layers for the finel blend of the stacked sky image with the long exposure low iso foreground images. The sky stacked image is in tiff format, what about the foreground images? do they also have to be in tiff format or can be in raw format?
The foreground will be the raw files in lightroom. But just so you know, after you blend and save the final image out of photoshop it will save to whatever settings you have set up in your photoshop preferences. So for example if I take my Sky Stack tiff files and open it with my Foreground Raw files into photoshop... then I blend the Images together and hit save. It will automatically save the New Blended image as Tiff file because it is set up in my preferences that way. (Tiff is better than JPEG since you have more editing power with a Tiff similar to a Raw file... but the file can be big)
@@Milkywaymike Thank you Mike. I find your milky way editing method is really good. I have tried to follow this and almost all worked fine except that in my photoshop cc 2017 the stacking mode is greyed out, something that many users are facing. So i am thinking now if it would be possible to stack the high iso, short exposure sky images in Sequator (like i allready did) and also stack the foreground low iso, long exposure images in sequator and just do the blend of them in photoshop.
If I’m using advanced techniques like tracking, stacking, twilight blends or long exposure blends then yes. If I’m shooting a single Milky Way image than no it’s not ideal.
It edits the raw files and then when you flatten the photoshop file and save it... most of the time it defaults to Tiff. If not, just do "save as" and choose TIFF. For lightroom just go to "File" - Export - File Settings - choose tiff
Nice and very helpful. This will reduce my production time. Please keep making these quality tutorials. In the end we will all be making better art. Anyone can take a picture. It's the processing and painting with light that makes it art. I learned old school with film in a darkroom. Enlarging, cropping, dodging and burning in is what made Ansel Adams B&W images pop. Same is still true in the digital dark room.
Thanks for watching and leaving feedback! Cheers!
Perfect yet again, thankyou for taking the time to produce these tutorials for us mere mortals :)
LOL... you're very welcome.
Thank you. Very well explained. It all makes sense without me scratching my head!
You are an excellent teacher, Mike. Thanks for this tutorial!
Thanks!!
Wonderful and very detailed. Thanks for the video!
beautiful!
love it!
Another brilliant tutorial Mike - thank you. I am making good progress with my astro photos and have fingers crossed for dark skies later this week. I will make sure to take multiple images like you did here, for sky and foreground, and try this out. many thanks again David
Thanks for watching and good luck to you!
Cool! Excellent Tutorial mate
Thanks for watching!
Excellent Tutorial! Thanks for this as I have some milky way shots that I wanted to stack but wasn't sure on how to do it without a clean horizon.
glad to help!
wonderful tutorial!! got a question!
How would it be to use dark frames to clean up even more of the foreground? is that a better option or just taking more light frames is better?
Great question! So I found that dark frames took more time with very minimal results for nightscape photography. You are better off just taking more light frames to get more dynamic range. Dark frames are more beneficial for DEEP SPACE photography, so if you ever decide to get into photographing some Nebulas or distant galaxies then for sure take some dark frames.
Nice job mike👏 thanks for showing us how to do all these tricks and tips.. much appreciated mate 👍
You're welcome!
Hi Mike, great tutorial (as always), the last step has really helped, and found ever with no lower ISO images it cleaned them up to a certain extent although reduces the sharpness, guess it always that trade off. More practice required. Thank you for sharing, regards Andrew
Thank you for watching!! Another option to get sharper / cleaner images is to take the foreground at astronomical twilight. Then wait for the milky way to come out and blend the twilight foreground with the milky way. If you dont move your camera it's easier to align the images.
Thanks Mike. Huge help!
This was awesome, thank you! It covered all the important steps in great detail.
Dan Neukirch you’re welcome! Thanks for watching and dropping a comment. Cheers 🍻
Great video Mike!!Thank you very much for your tutorial and your tips!!
Sure thing... Thanks for watching!!
Great video,,thank you
Thanks for yet another amazing and easy to follow toturial :)
Really appreciate it!
Anytime!
Great stuff as always Mike!
Thanks!
Great video. Straight to the point and very valuable info. Just curious, why don't I remove hot pixels on my foreground image first, before blending with milky way tracked image? I am new to blending, so just want to make sure if there is some disadvantage to that approach, because it will prevent creating additional mask on Background copy 2.
You can absolutely do it prior to blending the foreground with the sky. Sometimes I do it with the blended sky because I remove some of the stars as well to show more of the star dust in the milky way!
Excellent tutorials. Do you re-focus to take the landscape photos? Thanks for sharing your insights.
It mainly depends on how close I am to a foreground feature. If I'm shooting with an ultra wide lens then typically I stay in infinity but if I am using a 35mm for example I would have to focus on the foreground and the stars separately (unless it a large canyon, mountain or ravine far in the distance then i wouldn't).
Mike nice vid thanks. Couldn't you have used dust and scratches on the single foreground image before you flattened?
For sure! The order of operation is more efficient that way. I want people to see what happens to the stars when you use dust and scratches and how to create a mask to avoid certain areas in a photo, but absolutely you can use it prior to blending your sky. Some people like to actually reduce the number of stars in the sky with dust and scratches to show off more of the star dust in the Milky Way so if you plan on experimenting with that then you may want to do it at the end of your edit.
Great video Mike. Can I ask did you move the focus point when capturing the 4 foreground images?
Since I used an ultra wide lens I did not need to refocused, so I shot them at infinity. Depending on the focal length you are using and how far away you are from your foreground subject will determine if you need to refocus or not. I rarely ever refocus my foregrounds.
@@Milkywaymike Thank you very much for the reply I appreciate it
Awesome stuff. I’ve been impressed with your Insta posts lately!
Appreciate it!! Thanks a lot
Cool video Mike. Once you combine all the images into one final image can you delete all of the individual images to save space on the hard drive?
Yes, that typically what I do. I stack my images and just save that TIFF file (unprocessed). Then I do my edits with a copy of that file. I always save that unprocessed image in case I decide to go back and retry a new edit technique. But you are right, it would take up a lot of space to keep all the raw files for each stack so I get rid of them after stacking.
Thanks for watching!
Awesome job thanks 👍
You're welcome!
Thank you! This was very helpful.
James Clark thanks for watching!!
wonderful, just want I came here for. thank you dude!
Appreciate it, Thanks!
Headed here this week. Is there anywhere to camp on the beach?
Gabe Schiff-Verre there are camp grounds in the area but technically you can’t camp at Sand Beach if that’s the beach you are referring to. The park rangers will probably give you crap if they see you camping in Acadia. You might be able to get a backcountry permit to camp in the park though.
Milky Way Mike Oh man, all campgrounds are closed in the park and all campgrounds booked. Was hoping to camp on Little hunter for some milky shots. I’ll figure it out thanks! Check out my IG for pics! @road_lesstraveled_
.you are so amazing and Inspirational, I have two questions if you can help me, sir
If the humidity is 10% does this effect on the milky way photo? do you put any kind of filters on the lens? do you activate or not the (mirror lockup mode ) and the (VR-button) while taking a
shoot for the milky way?
Humidity could make some haze or clouds, but I usually just focus on the clouds coverage. Check 2 or 3 news sources and look for clear or mostly clear skies. I don't use any filters for my MW shots, however their are some out there which can help enhance the Magenta in the Milky Way that you may want to google since I have yet to use them. Don't use VR while using a tripod, it can actually create a blurry photo. Sometimes I use mirror lock up mode but it's not really necessary on a sturdy tripod. Mirror lock up boils down to experience with your gear and for long exposures it is good practice to use it if you want (but not necessary). Key ingredients for a good milky way shot is.. the lens (and focusing it at night), sturdy tripod and an intervalometer!
Hi Mike, do you have to use starry landscape stacker if you have landscape in the photo? I used deep sky stacker and was planning on using photoshop to blend in the landscape. I'm not too worried about the foreground because it was a treeline off in the distance. Thanks!
Sequator (pc) and starry landscape stacker (mac) typically are meant to be used with a foreground as the programs separate the foreground from the sky, then stack the images and then merges everything back together. I also have used starry landscape stacker with just Milky Way sky images and it stacked them no problem.
@@Milkywaymike Thank you for the response! I'm a new-comer to the astrophotography world and kind of a boomer when it comes to software programs. I am getting used to using Light Room for all my photo edits, but Photo Shop is another beast all together. BTW great content and easy to follow along.
Great video! Would this technique work when blending a tracked image with a static foreground image?
Yeah, absolutely.. .I have an in-depth tutorial on that as well ruclips.net/video/REd5GWnut_g/видео.html
Great tutorial, thank you. By the way, what if a human were to be in the foreground? I can't stand steady for 10 seconds let alone throughout such long exposures. Unsurprisingly, they appear like ghosts In the resulting images. How would you expose the foreground enough and sharp at the same time with any unsteady object in it?
I've done this very scenario in which I stacked images while standing in them. I do stand steady as can be for 10-15 seconds however their is still slight movement. So instead of stacking with "mean" mode I use "median" which helps with movement. You can see what I mean in more detail with this tutorial. Thanks! ruclips.net/video/kpWsIOKzmfs/видео.html
@@Milkywaymike Excellent, Mike! Cheers.
great job, you are a superman
I'm in trouble I bought iOptron SkyTracker Pro without Ball Head
I'd like to know what the name of Ball Head You are using? How much weight do you carry? 20 ib or more.
Should we use an iOptron Ball Head or any Ball Head depend on How much weight do you carry?
Pretty much any ballhead will do the trick.. I like ballheads that are arca swiss compatible since I use a L Bracket on my camera body. Something like this should be fine -it's arca swiss compatible and can hold up to nearly 20lbs. amzn.to/2KqAnnn The heaviest lens I have is a tamron 150-600mm which attached to my nikon D810 comes out to be around 8 LBS... Here is a smaller ballhead by the same company that holds around 14lbs. amzn.to/2LZV4v6 They both seem to have good reviews and are not too expensive.
Great video.
Thank you!
Thanks you!
excellent
Great tutorial, I have a question regarding foreground shots. Couldn’t you just drop the ISO down to something like 400 or maybe even less and shoot 1 longer exposure then blend that image with your stacked sky rather than have to do multiple foreground shots at ISO 2500?
Yes you can do that… I was under a time constraint so I increased the ISO. So if I shot those at iso 100-400 the exposure would have been 10 minutes or longer to gather in enough light. Other people are in the area so this risks light pollution from others with headlamps or flashlights
Thanks for the reply Mike. Can I ask for your 4 foreground photos in this video (hopefully you still remember) were they all the same aperture and ISO 2500 with just a mixture of 4 different shutter speeds i.e. you didn’t adjust aperture/ISO to correct exposure for shutter speed and the stacking of these 4 different exposures is what reduces the foreground noise?
love it
Nice.
Vert good leason, just thanks a lot
Erwin Torres thanks for watching!!
Great video Mike! Just be careful to not fly the drone in the national park.
Dana Plourde Thanks for the heads up!
IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that your noise and sharpening settings are OFF! The program is designed to take out the random pixel noise, and by doing it in Lightroom before going into SLS you are significantly hindering the quality results it is designed to achieve, Also, the sharpening on will INCREASE Luminance noise in the image! AFTER the noise is removed with SLS THEN different noise and sharpening protocol can be used with great results, but the way shown here will harm the image a lot! Also you need to make sure White balance is equalized in all images, and the program works way better with 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 images! Not numbers in between these. Just a few critical tips to let your viewers know so they are not handicapping their files...
Thanks for the additional advice. I've tested out the number of exposures stacked with SLS for the best quality and after around 12 exposures the quality seems to be nearly identical as lets say 16 photos, even when pixel peeped at 200% . Not sure how you got SLS to stack 32, 64 or 128 image unless they were extremely short exposures I'm assuming. The program gives me errors for anything over the mid-twenty range but that is with an exposure of 13 or 15 seconds (this test I did when it first came out years ago so maybe they made changes since then). I'm assuming if your exposure is shorter and you get less movement in the sky then you can stack more photos..
@@Milkywaymike Yes, we are down to 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 8...
I am making 6, 7, 8+ foot prints at high resolution with tact sharp and clean stars for fine art photography galleries. When I get into any serous enlargement (even 45 inches) I see big differences.
How did you avoid star trails with the very long exposure images?
Wooter
Casey Welty nah... it’s Wüder!! Lol 😉
Hi Mike, i have a question about the file format before you export the files to Photoshop As layers for the finel blend of the stacked sky image with the long exposure low iso foreground images. The sky stacked image is in tiff format, what about the foreground images? do they also have to be in tiff format or can be in raw format?
The foreground will be the raw files in lightroom. But just so you know, after you blend and save the final image out of photoshop it will save to whatever settings you have set up in your photoshop preferences. So for example if I take my Sky Stack tiff files and open it with my Foreground Raw files into photoshop... then I blend the Images together and hit save. It will automatically save the New Blended image as Tiff file because it is set up in my preferences that way. (Tiff is better than JPEG since you have more editing power with a Tiff similar to a Raw file... but the file can be big)
@@Milkywaymike Thank you Mike. I find your milky way editing method is really good. I have tried to follow this and almost all worked fine except that in my photoshop cc 2017 the stacking mode is greyed out, something that many users are facing. So i am thinking now if it would be possible to stack the high iso, short exposure sky images in Sequator (like i allready did) and also stack the foreground low iso, long exposure images in sequator and just do the blend of them in photoshop.
Would you shoot at f4?
If I’m using advanced techniques like tracking, stacking, twilight blends or long exposure blends then yes. If I’m shooting a single Milky Way image than no it’s not ideal.
Starts 1:20
Hi ! How do i know if the files that I export in photoshop are tiff ?
Also if i click (in lightroom) on edit as layer in photoshop is it gonna automatically be in tiff ?
It edits the raw files and then when you flatten the photoshop file and save it... most of the time it defaults to Tiff. If not, just do "save as" and choose TIFF. For lightroom just go to "File" - Export - File Settings - choose tiff
thanks man ! Once again great video !!