Try creating an extra layer filled with colour of your background on top of your image, and then use "subtract" blending mode - it'll give you pure black sky, but preserve the proper amount of red in nebula
Quick and dirty way which is better than that, is to simple duplicate 2 layers, on the top layer go to filter - blur - average. Then select the layer below, go to image - apply image and subtract. Delete off blurred top layer. The cast will be gone. A better way though, is how peter is doing it with RGB curves.
I spent a good part of my day yesterday going trough the lessons I purchased from you. You are a true wizard and a good teacher. I have gotten as far as the "For Beginners" under the Star Adventurer package.
Stunning views of M31, M33, Comet Wirtanen, North America Nebula after processing with Adobe and then viewed under Canon's Zoom Browser EX. The images did not break down! The second camera the EOS 5D Mark IV is iso invariant, being modified by Spencer.
I am in Northeastern Ohio also. I have a Astrnomik CLS filter, but it adds a lot of blue tint that I cannot seem to process out without ruining the color
Thank you. That was very helpful. Sodium street lights suck. Will this method work for the newer LED streetlights, or does that require a different technique?
hi Peter, nice and clear tutorial, about the M42 nebula, do you have some suggestions to avoid to desaturate the core and in same time enhance the nebulously? ciao Roberto
I took photos last night. Processed through Sequator. I am getting mottling in some areas of the sky and IO am not sure if it was high clouds that were being picked up. It wasn't as good a night as the night before. Also I am getting halos or silhouettes around wires or edges of trees and the sky. How do I eliminate that? I picked up Comet Wirtanen much more noticeable after processing. Noticeably green. I will jump to the Sky Adventurer tutorial before I resume the processing ones. I am sure you have tons of examples. BTW my lens frosted near the end, even though I draped a towel over it when I wasn't shooting. All the more reason for having it on the Star Adventurer with the heating straps around the lens.
I just setup my SkyGuider Pro right in the middle of the driveway, found Orion's belt, and aimed my lens up at it. Problem is, they installed some lightposts on my street, so that was causing me some problems with my nightvision. But the Orion Nebula is bright enough to be photographed even from light polluted areas!
Peter can the Star Adventurer handle the Tamron 150mm-600mm (TAMRON SP 150-600mm F5-6.3 Di VC USD) telephoto? I have the counterweight & shaft latitude adjustment EQ base etc...the lens is a monster!
Any idea how can I deal with a gradual light pollution? It's strongest near the horizon/bottom part of the image, and the lowest in the top part of my shots, so when I try some of the adjustment sliders it improves one part of the image but practically ruins some other. I haven't tried your method but I'm going to take some Milky Way shots tonight and will try this and see if it works on gradual light pollution or not. Thank you for this wonderful tutorial :)
That's hard to fix unfortunately. One trick is bringing down the exposure using a Curves layer, then using a Gradient to make the layer mask only apply to the light pollution
Hi Peter, I have a question for you. I'll go for shooting next week with my SW Star Adventurer. I'm not very experianced. The place i'm going is going to be Bortle 4 class skies, so i expect some light pollution. I won't be using very long focal lengths, so i'll be getting some light pollution gradients across my frames (fullframe 135mm i.e.). What would you recommend? Is there any way I can decrease the impact of light pollution to my individual sub frames, such as lowering iso, stopping down the aperture, or shortening my exposures? I'm afraid close street lamps might overexpose my images fast, so long exposing with tracked could be useless. What would you recommend?
Gradients are harder to remove. One way is to process your photos with the first stretch and you will notice that there is a color cast. If you are using photoshop, you can make a copy of the stretched image and open it as new document. Then select filter/noise/remove dust and scratches. Use the pixel slider until the stars are blurred out and you can see the gradient. Use the clone stamp and/or content aware fill to remove any blemishes from your target. Larger galaxies are harder to remove. Once your image is just the pollution gradient, then save that as a PSD. Go back to your image, and highlight the image you copied. Then click on Image/Apply and in the top box select the PSD you just saved. Then where it says multiply, change that to subtract and then down on the left you will see offset and there will be two numbers, a 1 and then another number underneath. Adjust the bottom number number up by 5 or 10 digits until your target details are still visible but the pollution is gone. Its not a perfect fix, and it does take some time and tweaking. Another option for you is to buy a light pollution filter. You can take longer tracked images in light pollution without the streetlights over exposing. But, it does add a horrible blue tint that can be difficult to correct.
@@jasonspiskey4148 Thanks for the answer. I've tried that several times, the problem with it is, i also seem to lose some detail on the milkyway too. I don't have the luxury to go out to dark skies, so i'm considering a light pollution filter. I'll try it exactly as you described, never managed to get clone stamp / content aware fill to discard the details i want to keep from the subtract layer, guess i'll need to spend more time on it. Thanks for the advice!
@@Roneil22 yea, with large items like that, it gets hard. Have you tried using Sequator? It does a pretty good job of removing light pollution. I also just heard about a program called Siril. It also removes light pollution and background gradients, but at least for me it is very difficult to understand and I have not found many tutorials on how to use it
@@jasonspiskey4148 Thanks i'll check them out. So far the best solution i had was GradientXterminator, i tested out it's free trial and seems to work fine for now. Thanks for the advice, you've been very helpful. I'll make sure to check out the softwares you recommended.
Technically, you could do this technique in any program that has the Curves functionality. Any version of Photoshop will work, even GIMP has it. However, I actually don't use Lightroom so I can't say if it has Curves built in or not.
Ok my old ps7 has curves so I will experiment with that. Luminance isn't there and I dont have a problem paying $120 a year but I want the right thing.
Can that light pollution reduction technique be used with wide angle (lanscape) astro shots. Kept hearing of the technique but never have seen a video for wide angle
Light Pollution at a wide angle is much more difficult to remove. At least with telephoto focal lengths, the light pollution is usually even throughout the frame. However, at wide angles, the light pollution is a gradient. Oddly enough, I don't have many wide angle images with light pollution in them, so I haven't been able to create a tutorial yet. This is something that's high on my list though, and I'm hoping to have one completed sometime this winter!
Look forward to it - this was my first year taking some Milky way shots and while getting to the darkest place of earth is the best option a lot of the time interesting foreground elements / places to shoot may be where there is a lot more light pollution than you would like.
Hi Dan, Got your email. Yeah, it looks Sequator had a hard time with those blurred trees. I usually try to find an area without as many obstructions, when possible. Without any blurred foreground elements, Sequator will have a much easier time stacking.
@@PeterZelinka Learning. I believe there were high clouds that moved in pretty fast...and frost on the lens...near the end of the session...not bad for first results...
I give you absolutely right, I myself use pixinsight for my photography. but you have to consider that not everyone does astrophotography at the level to buy a copy of pixisight, which has a considerable cost. so I have the idea that the advice given in the video is not to be discarded.
Here's how people can help reduce light pollution: www.darksky.org/get-involved/ You can also find eco-friendly lighting here: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-industry/fsa/ There are also basic guides for what lighting is best for cities and residences, including outdoor lighting: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-citizens/lighting-basics/, as well as a page for just businesses: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/residentialbusiness-lighting/. Here is a page on how to identify if your community has a lighting ordinance, if it does, how to enforce it, and if it does not, how to advocate for it: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/public-policy/lighting-ordinances/. Here is a way to deal with light trespass and effects by the local government: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-citizens/bad-streetlights/ Here are some lighting guidelines and info for policymakers: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/public-policy/policy-makers/ And how to help the animals affected: th-cam.com/video/ooLYWwA43SE/w-d-xo.html Also a very interesting debunking on why increased street lighting doesn't actually decrease crime: www.darksky.org/light-pollution/lighting-crime-and-safety/ Here's a very interesting page on how much light energy is being wasted: www.darksky.org/light-pollution/energy-waste/ If you're a super sciency person, there's a database for scientific research specifically relating to artificial light here: alandb.darksky.org/ There are apps to help combat overturned circadian rhythms, meaning you can work at night but still not mess up your circadian rhythm: www.darksky.org/light-pollution/human-health/ Finally, these are places where you can visit near you that have good light stewardship (meaning you can actually see the sky): www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/ If for an absurdly tiny possibility someone from the government read my comment, this link is how to get certified as a Dark Sky place: www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/become-a-dark-sky-place/
You said something wrong about the job on the curves, let me explain why: the Right thing you said is to substract the red light pollution because this red light pollution is added to the image, that's totally ok. But then you push down the selected point on the red curve. By pushing it down the point you are not substracting you're multiplying a constant by less than 1.0 to the image data of each pixel. That's the mistake. To effectively substract, the selected point must be push to the right ;-) That's by the way the job you do after in the second method by selecting the black point with the tool, you can see on the curves that the lower point of the curve (the actual black point) is moved to the right automaticaly by Photoshop, just because photoshop is substracting to do it ;-) I'm not saying that for a bad reason, just correct a little error in your great video. I'm far to be good and understand everything in post processing, espacially in astrophoto, i'm learning every day with good tutos and shares like yours. You can have a look there for more precise informations (and a lot of informations) on this subject, by a man who knows the business like a real pro. His website is a Wikipedia itself for this domain! clarkvision.com/articles/astrophotography.image.processing2/
jesus is coming soon. jesus is only savior and judge Psalms 50chapter 15. And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
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The simplest, most strait to the point tutorial I have ever watched!
You are a wizard ! Subscribed, can't wait to watch all the videos! Thanks!!
Try creating an extra layer filled with colour of your background on top of your image, and then use "subtract" blending mode - it'll give you pure black sky, but preserve the proper amount of red in nebula
How bout with gradients? I tried with that but it cuts out the more faint parts of the nebula and adds noise around the edge
Quick and dirty way which is better than that, is to simple duplicate 2 layers, on the top layer go to filter - blur - average. Then select the layer below, go to image - apply image and subtract. Delete off blurred top layer. The cast will be gone. A better way though, is how peter is doing it with RGB curves.
I used this video to edit my first-ever set of shots of Andromeda, with great results. Thanks Peter!
This is so cool, alotta inspiration for someone wanting to get into this hobby without much knowledge and experience
I spent a good part of my day yesterday going trough the lessons I purchased from you. You are a true wizard and a good teacher. I have gotten as far as the "For Beginners" under the Star Adventurer package.
Thanks Dan! Glad to hear the tutorials were helpful! Sounds like you're just about to get into all the cool editing techniques too
the black point adjustment was even better!
Thank you. So simple. Looking forward to those tutorials
Great trick Peter. Thanks for sharing!
Helpful video man, greetings from Greece!
Which plug-in is this on the left of properties? (Ff, Qb, Eb etc.)
I love simple awesome fixes. Thanks. This year will be my first attempt at astro photography.
BTW, Sequator does a superb job eliminating or greatly minimizing coma. I did use dark frames.
Stunning views of M31, M33, Comet Wirtanen, North America Nebula after processing with Adobe and then viewed under Canon's Zoom Browser EX. The images did not break down! The second camera the EOS 5D Mark IV is iso invariant, being modified by Spencer.
Thank-you for this tutorial. It’s a game changer. Enjoying all of your vids and content. Mahalo and Aloha.
I am in Northeastern Ohio also. I have a Astrnomik CLS filter, but it adds a lot of blue tint that I cannot seem to process out without ruining the color
Thank you. That was very helpful. Sodium street lights suck. Will this method work for the newer LED streetlights, or does that require a different technique?
Great video! I just got a Sky-Watcher tracker myself. I'll have to check out your course!
Great tutorial! Solve the problem in 5min. Great great great
Thank you very much learning now only how to process image thanks
That's superb. Nice one
Very good one, any chance to do same thing with GIMP!
@peter zelinka, this may me a couple years old now. It's still a great video!
Perfect! To the point, and super helpful! Thank you!!!!
awesome tutorial
amazing!!! so effective in removing light pollution!
hi Peter, nice and clear tutorial, about the M42 nebula, do you have some suggestions to avoid to desaturate the core and in same time enhance the nebulously? ciao Roberto
Brilliant! ......many, many thanks!
Thank you for this helpful video. You seem to master Photoshop pretty well...
I took photos last night. Processed through Sequator. I am getting mottling in some areas of the sky and IO am not sure if it was high clouds that were being picked up. It wasn't as good a night as the night before. Also I am getting halos or silhouettes around wires or edges of trees and the sky. How do I eliminate that? I picked up Comet Wirtanen much more noticeable after processing. Noticeably green. I will jump to the Sky Adventurer tutorial before I resume the processing ones. I am sure you have tons of examples. BTW my lens frosted near the end, even though I draped a towel over it when I wasn't shooting. All the more reason for having it on the Star Adventurer with the heating straps around the lens.
U know you were right with the point of this video and you were not complicated
Have you tried the light pollution filter in Sequator? Do you know how it works? It seems much more sophisticated than these methods.
wow that second method is great :O
Thank you!
Outstanding! Thanks for sharing. Would you do this before, during, or after all other post processing?
I normally do this first thing once I get in Photoshop
Please tell me what version of Photo Shop are you using in this video?
I have to go local as its lockdown, but I want to practice using my tracker for the milky way in a bortle 7 area
Super, but how did you take the Photo (near the drive way). With hole equipment, or by the way?
I just setup my SkyGuider Pro right in the middle of the driveway, found Orion's belt, and aimed my lens up at it. Problem is, they installed some lightposts on my street, so that was causing me some problems with my nightvision. But the Orion Nebula is bright enough to be photographed even from light polluted areas!
Many Thanks. I have subscribed, I like the ART of your videos too, not only the photos you made! Thanks from over light polluted Germany.
Hahaha, I wish I knew this yesterday. Would have saved me ALOT of time...
Thank you!!!
Gracias 🙏🏻
Or buy a clip filter of ccd filter ?
Peter can the Star Adventurer handle the Tamron 150mm-600mm (TAMRON SP 150-600mm F5-6.3 Di VC USD) telephoto? I have the counterweight & shaft latitude adjustment EQ base etc...the lens is a monster!
Yeah, the star adventurer can handle the Tamron 150-600mm lens no problem! That's the main lens I use for astrophotography now
I can´t use my Sigma 150-600 to make astrophotos, even with a very strong tripod and a star adventurer, how can you do that?
Any idea how can I deal with a gradual light pollution? It's strongest near the horizon/bottom part of the image, and the lowest in the top part of my shots, so when I try some of the adjustment sliders it improves one part of the image but practically ruins some other.
I haven't tried your method but I'm going to take some Milky Way shots tonight and will try this and see if it works on gradual light pollution or not. Thank you for this wonderful tutorial :)
That's hard to fix unfortunately. One trick is bringing down the exposure using a Curves layer, then using a Gradient to make the layer mask only apply to the light pollution
Hi Peter, I have a question for you. I'll go for shooting next week with my SW Star Adventurer. I'm not very experianced. The place i'm going is going to be Bortle 4 class skies, so i expect some light pollution. I won't be using very long focal lengths, so i'll be getting some light pollution gradients across my frames (fullframe 135mm i.e.). What would you recommend? Is there any way I can decrease the impact of light pollution to my individual sub frames, such as lowering iso, stopping down the aperture, or shortening my exposures? I'm afraid close street lamps might overexpose my images fast, so long exposing with tracked could be useless. What would you recommend?
Gradients are harder to remove. One way is to process your photos with the first stretch and you will notice that there is a color cast. If you are using photoshop, you can make a copy of the stretched image and open it as new document. Then select filter/noise/remove dust and scratches. Use the pixel slider until the stars are blurred out and you can see the gradient. Use the clone stamp and/or content aware fill to remove any blemishes from your target. Larger galaxies are harder to remove. Once your image is just the pollution gradient, then save that as a PSD. Go back to your image, and highlight the image you copied. Then click on Image/Apply and in the top box select the PSD you just saved. Then where it says multiply, change that to subtract and then down on the left you will see offset and there will be two numbers, a 1 and then another number underneath. Adjust the bottom number number up by 5 or 10 digits until your target details are still visible but the pollution is gone. Its not a perfect fix, and it does take some time and tweaking. Another option for you is to buy a light pollution filter. You can take longer tracked images in light pollution without the streetlights over exposing. But, it does add a horrible blue tint that can be difficult to correct.
@@jasonspiskey4148 Thanks for the answer. I've tried that several times, the problem with it is, i also seem to lose some detail on the milkyway too. I don't have the luxury to go out to dark skies, so i'm considering a light pollution filter. I'll try it exactly as you described, never managed to get clone stamp / content aware fill to discard the details i want to keep from the subtract layer, guess i'll need to spend more time on it. Thanks for the advice!
@@Roneil22 yea, with large items like that, it gets hard. Have you tried using Sequator? It does a pretty good job of removing light pollution. I also just heard about a program called Siril. It also removes light pollution and background gradients, but at least for me it is very difficult to understand and I have not found many tutorials on how to use it
@@jasonspiskey4148 Thanks i'll check them out. So far the best solution i had was GradientXterminator, i tested out it's free trial and seems to work fine for now. Thanks for the advice, you've been very helpful. I'll make sure to check out the softwares you recommended.
Nice tutorial. Thank you. :) by the way..All the brown dwarf stars in orion disappeared..;)
Thanks Peter, do I need PS Cc and Lightroom ?
Technically, you could do this technique in any program that has the Curves functionality. Any version of Photoshop will work, even GIMP has it. However, I actually don't use Lightroom so I can't say if it has Curves built in or not.
Ok my old ps7 has curves so I will experiment with that. Luminance isn't there and I dont have a problem paying $120 a year but I want the right thing.
Yeah, you should be able to make do with that older version, but if not, the latest Photoshop CC should be a nice upgrade!
Peter, LR definitely has curves functionality . Also way to many features to go into here.
As a raw file processor it’s unparalleled imo.
Can that light pollution reduction technique be used with wide angle (lanscape) astro shots. Kept hearing of the technique but never have seen a video for wide angle
Light Pollution at a wide angle is much more difficult to remove. At least with telephoto focal lengths, the light pollution is usually even throughout the frame. However, at wide angles, the light pollution is a gradient.
Oddly enough, I don't have many wide angle images with light pollution in them, so I haven't been able to create a tutorial yet. This is something that's high on my list though, and I'm hoping to have one completed sometime this winter!
Look forward to it - this was my first year taking some Milky way shots and while getting to the darkest place of earth is the best option a lot of the time interesting foreground elements / places to shoot may be where there is a lot more light pollution than you would like.
Good video
Note: Sequator does not like dark foreground objects against the sky! It creates halos in the boundary area. Check your email.
Hi Dan,
Got your email. Yeah, it looks Sequator had a hard time with those blurred trees. I usually try to find an area without as many obstructions, when possible. Without any blurred foreground elements, Sequator will have a much easier time stacking.
@@PeterZelinka Learning. I believe there were high clouds that moved in pretty fast...and frost on the lens...near the end of the session...not bad for first results...
I'm an AP noob. Is this called stretching? And can't you just do this with the histogram?
OMG! That's magic!
Great..
good info but DBE and ABE In Pixinsight is far superior at removing gradients in astro photos.
I give you absolutely right, I myself use pixinsight for my photography. but you have to consider that not everyone does astrophotography at the level to buy a copy of pixisight, which has a considerable cost. so I have the idea that the advice given in the video is not to be discarded.
Great info... but I have an older version of Adobe Photoshop, so I'm going to have to search to see if it has anything like what you have shown.
Here's how people can help reduce light pollution: www.darksky.org/get-involved/
You can also find eco-friendly lighting here: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-industry/fsa/
There are also basic guides for what lighting is best for
cities and residences, including outdoor lighting: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-citizens/lighting-basics/,
as well as a page for just businesses: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/residentialbusiness-lighting/.
Here is a page on how to identify if your community has a
lighting ordinance, if it does, how to enforce it, and if it does not, how to
advocate for it: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/public-policy/lighting-ordinances/.
Here is a way to deal with light trespass and effects by the
local government: www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-citizens/bad-streetlights/
Here are some lighting guidelines and info for policymakers:
www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/public-policy/policy-makers/
And how to help the animals affected: th-cam.com/video/ooLYWwA43SE/w-d-xo.html
Also a very interesting debunking on why increased street
lighting doesn't actually decrease crime: www.darksky.org/light-pollution/lighting-crime-and-safety/
Here's a very interesting page on how much light energy is
being wasted: www.darksky.org/light-pollution/energy-waste/
If you're a super sciency person, there's a database for
scientific research specifically relating to artificial light here: alandb.darksky.org/ There are apps to help combat
overturned circadian rhythms, meaning you can work at night but still not mess
up your circadian rhythm: www.darksky.org/light-pollution/human-health/
Finally, these are places where you can visit near you that
have good light stewardship (meaning you can actually see the sky): www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/
If for an absurdly tiny possibility someone from the
government read my comment, this link is how to get certified as a Dark Sky
place: www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/become-a-dark-sky-place/
Wow! so simple...
Where in north east Ohio?
I love you
Yeeee i wish have dslr and goto mount
You said something wrong about the job on the curves, let me explain why:
the Right thing you said is to substract the red light pollution because this red light pollution is added to the image, that's totally ok. But then you push down the selected point on the red curve.
By pushing it down the point you are not substracting you're multiplying a constant by less than 1.0 to the image data of each pixel. That's the mistake.
To effectively substract, the selected point must be push to the right ;-)
That's by the way the job you do after in the second method by selecting the black point with the tool, you can see on the curves that the lower point of the curve (the actual black point) is moved to the right automaticaly by Photoshop, just because photoshop is substracting to do it ;-)
I'm not saying that for a bad reason, just correct a little error in your great video.
I'm far to be good and understand everything in post processing, espacially in astrophoto, i'm learning every day with good tutos and shares like yours.
You can have a look there for more precise informations (and a lot of informations) on this subject, by a man who knows the business like a real pro. His website is a Wikipedia itself for this domain! clarkvision.com/articles/astrophotography.image.processing2/
When i make a pic it shows like 2 stars thats all...
I live in northeast ohio!
NE Ohio!? Im 20 min from sandusky!
jesus is coming soon.
jesus is only savior and judge
Psalms 50chapter
15. And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.