Yea the video is long but its worth every minute of it. The tutorial is very comprehensive and explain why certain settings works certain way so we can understand the mechanics behind it, instead of bluntly following. Thank you Peter you’re a great teacher.👍
Thank you soooo much for sharing this full 50min of absolute gold. It helps saving years of trails, mistakes and wondering around web just to find one answer (some of them took me a year to learn, others even two years). Tbh most TH-camrs even the most famous ones would just pick 5 points and make their best performed videos but ur keeping sharing all the details without holing back anything. Thank you so much for your generosity, professionalism and the heart of helping out others!! ❤️
Peter, I've been watching all you videos and I have to say that the level of dedication, time, efforts, and tutorials are amazing. Thank you so much for your work and sharing. I'm totally new to astrophotography and you have really helped me understand the workflow. Sure I'll have to watch them a couple times to get it all in the old brain but this was excellent work. Again thanks so much.
If working in the ProPhoto color space, rather than using the “Save As” command for JPEG conversion use the “Export” command instead it will allow Re-sizing and an easy conversion to sRGB. (The default ICC profile is the profile for my color calibrated monitor). The interpolation is also excellent. Thanks for this excellent tutorial. I am still using my old Nikon D750...
I hardly ever comment before watching an entire video, but so far I watched up to the point where you begin telling about stacking and I already learned a lot of new information about post processing a set of subs. Thank you very much for all the details you shared. Especially helpful are the tips about noise reduction, not adding too much contrast, making the sky flat gray, when to use noise reduction and color noise reduction and how to process differently depending on the number of photos made in a session as well as how to make different settings differently depending on the shutter speeds in a session. Those tips and details will help me improve my pictures. Thank you very much for the time you took making this video and for sharing the information about the differences in how to treat photos depending on how the session was shot. I could get a good start processing in GIMP using levels and curves, but I could tell I needed to learn a lot more in order to make pictures a lot better. I think doing only what I learned in the first third of this video will help me get better images. Naturally I'll watch the rest of the video. Thanks again, very much for this video and for sharing your knowledge.
Like a lot of people out there I’m on a steep learning curve. But this video will help me enormously. I stepped into astrophotography in August this year and have already had some good results especially given the restrictions of the UK weather. But your workflow has already pushed me to a higher level - it was a ‘must watch’. Thank you Peter 🤝
Instead of using the gaussian blur on the mask, you can lower the flow on your brush, and brush around the edges of your changes to feather it in. You then have better control over if areas that need it more than others.
Thanks Peter for your excellent videos. This workflow is just perfect. Just ordered a Samyang 135 f2 and have a basic tracker. My mission is to capture a good rendition of Orion before it dips below the horizon here in Ireland in Feb.
Thanks much for all the info presented. I'm heading to west Texas this weekend to use my Star Adventurer for the first time. Nikon Z6 and 300mm f4 will be onboard.
Thank you Peter for these four introductory to astrophotography. I have found them most informative and very useful. Hopefully my SWSA will turn up in the next couple of days, then I can learn how to use that coupled with my DSLR. I have noted loads of tips and tricks from your videos, so they have put me on a good start.
I am so glad I ran across your video! I have been struggling with only 'meh' image processing results using Photoshop, but after watching your video I learned a bunch of processing tricks and, more importantly, how to take advantage of what Photoshop can do. Now I want to go back and re-process my images. Thanks!
Really happy to see this presentation Peter, thanks! I'd wondered but not yet explored a RAW-first editing approach, pre-stacking, notbably for exactly the reason you mentioned...applying the optics profile. I recently shot the Flame & Horsehead Nebulas, with generally my best results yet but still slightly oblong stars and small star trail "tadpoles", using a Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary zoom on my Nikon D850. I'll try the RAW-first approch and see if that might clean things up for me better than DSS-first did.
Still recommend stacking raw fiels first then stretch the image to preserve the details and dynamic range. Another much easier way to fix the purple hue is to take dark frames
I use AstoPixelProcessor for Mac to stack the raw files which does a pretty good job and then open the integrated file in PS. But as I'm a newbie I'm always interested to see how others do their post processing.
Hi Peter, Thanks for this video. I do landscape photography, star trails and Milky Way but have decided to start doing some Nebula images. I have a really nice dark spot where I go between Vegas and Death Valley. My Orion Nebula does have core problems so this video helped immensely. Didn't know you were in Kanab. I worked over there for awhile doing photography workshops and taking people out to various places helping a friend of mine who also lives in Kanab. I'm over in the Vegas area myself.
This is by far the best single video tutorial that covered SO MUCH ground on post processing, while still maintaining the perfect balance between depth of content while not overwhelming the viewer. Great work Peter. One question: have you personally found PixInsight giving some hands down advantage compared to your choice of editing tools (which I prefer by the way, layers are amazing)?
Thank you Peter, This has helped me so much, as a beginner in astrophotography I can use all the help I can get. Most of the time I was just using Lightroom, with the use of Bridge before stacking, and the use of PS.. Unreal how my image looks.. Thank you Sir ! Your videos have helped me so much..
That was a really good video. I think I like your workflow with PS more than some others I've seen. I've invested in Carboni's action set and also a Noise reduction (Name escapes me) that I do like though. Lots of really good info here.
Curious Problem: Seemingly unique to the Nikon D850, but perhaps to other current Nikons with the same sensor, the "Nikon-reported" resolution of 8256x5504 pixels, as what seems recognized and used by Photoshop and Camera Raw, is not the "true resolution" of 8288x5520 pixels, which is reported by Deep Sky Stacker and likely the resolution used by Sequator (I can't find what it is using for a D850 NEF). What I learned, to call Peter's workflow here a "RAW first process", is that if one edits a D850 NEF in Camera Raw and saves it, a size of 8150x5433 pixels is used as the Adobe Default. That size can be changed to 8280x5520 which maintains the same aspect ratio, but not 8288x5520 of the true resolution. Thus, one cannot save a NEF to a TIFF or other format from Camera Raw in a size that will be compatible with DSS or Sequator's use of the true D850 resolution. This means for DSS that registration and stacking will not proceed due to size discrepancies with respect to the calibration image sizes or, that Sequator will proceed but later show errors presumably 1 per each file that mismatches in size against the calibration files. So, if you want to go with this "RAW first" approach for a Nikon D850, you will need to do so for only the star images (lights) and forego calibration images. Otherwise, all NEFs or FITs for your calibration images would need to be cropped and saved to the slightly smaller 8280x5520-pixel size that the edited NEFs are saved to, and that would be an unwieldy extra task for the workflow.
Great video with clear concise steps for processing- thank you!! Peter, what would be an auto guider that I could get for a sky adventurer star tracker?
I wish I was able to use the Deep Sky Stacker; that 2GB memory allocation is killing the process unless I reduce the resolution by a lot. Just too bad that the developer stopped working on this. Great video - working on your raw images and saving them as TIFF is a really smart thing! It will definitely change my workflow. Thank you for sharing the video.
Peter great video. See when you use filter - blur - gausian blur, did you know you can just blur the layer mask and preview it in real time. Same but quicker and more control.
Love it .. i like ur work flow for removing the color noise and all but I do prefer to still shoot darks and flats and to engage all the +++ on sequator or my images come out super washed since I'm in super light polluted skies
Surfing and found your sight,I see how you get thru lp using your narrowband filters but can I get galaxy images in my what has become terribly light polluted skies or is it a lost cause?
Hey Peter! Great stuff, as usual Own the ioptron skytracker pro, with a sony alpha 7 dslr+135mm rokinon lens, last week I took my first attempt to catch DSO's Struggled a bit with polar alignment and finding balance, set the timer at first 5x60 sec but as I reviewed shots, I've noticed a lot of diffences amongst photos even during this relatively short period of time Is it because this rig is not good enough for this kind of astro? or it was just a misaligment/balancing problem? maybe both a bit right? so I'm not really sure how can I get the wanted result I usually see people stacking huge amount of photos during these DSO procedures and I don't really see how, autoguide is a must? What is the maximum period time which you can work with a tracker/lens like that without an autoguide? Can you process a decent DSO photo from that or it depends on many kind of things? Thanks in advance, Balázs Ujvári
While I do use the "other workflow," you presented a LOT of techniques in Photoshop that I've never seen before. I can use this info TODAY to make better images. Than you!
Hi, thx for this awesome tutorial. My question is when you synched your lights, you didn't synch the calibration frames. Does it mean it is not necessary, or can it really mess up the tiffs before stacking?
Very useful. I understand why you would use a colour profile with such a limited colour gamut. srgb is perfectly suited for device viewing but it's not clear in your video that it is certainly not recommended for a print outcome. ProPhoto RGB is best suited for print.
Shouldn't a color cast be subtracted out of the photo instead of changing the color of the whole image by adjusting your white balance? Working on subtracting something that's in your photo is a better overall result than adding something in to solve the issue, right? I'm just trying to learn best. Thank you.
Awesome series! Thanks for your effort for us noobs! Photoshop has doubled in price since this video. Not really great for hobbyists. I'm sticking with my CS6 until I can no longer use it or my computer dies.
If you are game to test it out, Affinity Photo for iPad is awesome! They also have a desktop version. Super reasonable price. I only use an iPad and now iPad Pro recently. It gives people that may not have access to desktop like myself to do some awesome editing for astrophotography. Check it out!
@@tdawg719 On dslr cameras light leak happens through the eyepiece as well so I found that closing the eyepiece or covering it up will stop that purple tint you get from it
@@larrycrain4505 Nikon supplies that eyepiece blanker for a good reason given the light leakage you referred to. I saw no reason not to use it, so I cannot vouch for the consequences of not using it.
Why don’t we take a longer exposure if we have a star tracker ? If we still get star trails after 30sec. Then we can do the whole process manually without a star tracker ! The only difference is that you don’t have to touch your camera every 30 sec. I’m kind of confused 🤷🏻♂️
Yea the video is long but its worth every minute of it. The tutorial is very comprehensive and explain why certain settings works certain way so we can understand the mechanics behind it, instead of bluntly following. Thank you Peter you’re a great teacher.👍
Wow wow wow! An expert, skilled astrophotographer, and a true artist!
Thank you soooo much for sharing this full 50min of absolute gold. It helps saving years of trails, mistakes and wondering around web just to find one answer (some of them took me a year to learn, others even two years). Tbh most TH-camrs even the most famous ones would just pick 5 points and make their best performed videos but ur keeping sharing all the details without holing back anything. Thank you so much for your generosity, professionalism and the heart of helping out others!! ❤️
one of the best videos I've ever seen on this topic
Peter, I've been watching all you videos and I have to say that the level of dedication, time, efforts, and tutorials are amazing. Thank you so much for your work and sharing. I'm totally new to astrophotography and you have really helped me understand the workflow. Sure I'll have to watch them a couple times to get it all in the old brain but this was excellent work. Again thanks so much.
If working in the ProPhoto color space, rather than using the “Save As” command for JPEG conversion use the “Export” command instead it will allow Re-sizing and an easy conversion to sRGB. (The default ICC profile is the profile for my color calibrated monitor). The interpolation is also excellent. Thanks for this excellent tutorial. I am still using my old Nikon D750...
I hardly ever comment before watching an entire video, but so far I watched up to the point where you begin telling about stacking and I already learned a lot of new information about post processing a set of subs. Thank you very much for all the details you shared. Especially helpful are the tips about noise reduction, not adding too much contrast, making the sky flat gray, when to use noise reduction and color noise reduction and how to process differently depending on the number of photos made in a session as well as how to make different settings differently depending on the shutter speeds in a session. Those tips and details will help me improve my pictures. Thank you very much for the time you took making this video and for sharing the information about the differences in how to treat photos depending on how the session was shot.
I could get a good start processing in GIMP using levels and curves, but I could tell I needed to learn a lot more in order to make pictures a lot better. I think doing only what I learned in the first third of this video will help me get better images. Naturally I'll watch the rest of the video. Thanks again, very much for this video and for sharing your knowledge.
Like a lot of people out there I’m on a steep learning curve. But this video will help me enormously. I stepped into astrophotography in August this year and have already had some good results especially given the restrictions of the UK weather. But your workflow has already pushed me to a higher level - it was a ‘must watch’. Thank you Peter 🤝
Instead of using the gaussian blur on the mask, you can lower the flow on your brush, and brush around the edges of your changes to feather it in. You then have better control over if areas that need it more than others.
Thanks Peter for your excellent videos. This workflow is just perfect. Just ordered a Samyang 135 f2 and have a basic tracker. My mission is to capture a good rendition of Orion before it dips below the horizon here in Ireland in Feb.
Thanks much for all the info presented. I'm heading to west Texas this weekend to use my Star Adventurer for the first time. Nikon Z6 and 300mm f4 will be onboard.
Let us know how that goes. I am considering the Sky Adventurer. Thanks
Thank you Peter for these four introductory to astrophotography. I have found them most informative and very useful. Hopefully my SWSA will turn up in the next couple of days, then I can learn how to use that coupled with my DSLR. I have noted loads of tips and tricks from your videos, so they have put me on a good start.
I am so glad I ran across your video! I have been struggling with only 'meh' image processing results using Photoshop, but after watching your video I learned a bunch of processing tricks and, more importantly, how to take advantage of what Photoshop can do. Now I want to go back and re-process my images. Thanks!
Thanks
The black point dropper curve layer with the luminosity mode was new to me... brilliant
Outstanding job, thanks so much for sharing this!
Awesome post processing video. Mainly do Milky Way photos but I see a lot of practices I can use in processing them.
And the gausian blurr on the layer mask is a great trick
Really happy to see this presentation Peter, thanks! I'd wondered but not yet explored a RAW-first editing approach, pre-stacking, notbably for exactly the reason you mentioned...applying the optics profile. I recently shot the Flame & Horsehead Nebulas, with generally my best results yet but still slightly oblong stars and small star trail "tadpoles", using a Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary zoom on my Nikon D850. I'll try the RAW-first approch and see if that might clean things up for me better than DSS-first did.
Awesome video. I just tried your Photoshop workflow and my pics come out 100x's better. Provided all goes well in stacking... Thanks!!
Still recommend stacking raw fiels first then stretch the image to preserve the details and dynamic range. Another much easier way to fix the purple hue is to take dark frames
I use AstoPixelProcessor for Mac to stack the raw files which does a pretty good job and then open the integrated file in PS. But as I'm a newbie I'm always interested to see how others do their post processing.
Hi Peter, Thanks for this video. I do landscape photography, star trails and Milky Way but have decided to start doing some Nebula images. I have a really nice dark spot where I go between Vegas and Death Valley. My Orion Nebula does have core problems so this video helped immensely. Didn't know you were in Kanab. I worked over there for awhile doing photography workshops and taking people out to various places helping a friend of mine who also lives in Kanab. I'm over in the Vegas area myself.
A P.S. on this. I have a Nikon D810. As you pointed out regarding the magenta look, I have been using my Sony A7Riii with a 100--400 f/5.6 Sony lens.
very high quality educational video
This is by far the best single video tutorial that covered SO MUCH ground on post processing, while still maintaining the perfect balance between depth of content while not overwhelming the viewer. Great work Peter. One question: have you personally found PixInsight giving some hands down advantage compared to your choice of editing tools (which I prefer by the way, layers are amazing)?
Thank you so much for sharing this 4 parts video learning ,very informative and helpful.. Kudos to you
Hope you guys get a shot at the conjunction on the 21st, its cloudy here for most part, clear skies!
Totally blown away ! :-)
Good morning! Can you tell me if there's a way of processing Ha when using a stock DSLR to get the best image?
Thanks for your excellent videos!
Thank you Peter, This has helped me so much, as a beginner in astrophotography I can use all the help I can get. Most of the time I was just using Lightroom, with the use of Bridge before stacking, and the use of PS.. Unreal how my image looks.. Thank you Sir ! Your videos have helped me so much..
That was a really good video. I think I like your workflow with PS more than some others I've seen. I've invested in Carboni's action set and also a Noise reduction (Name escapes me) that I do like though. Lots of really good info here.
Just.. Wow!! Great tutorial, thx!!
Curious Problem: Seemingly unique to the Nikon D850, but perhaps to other current Nikons with the same sensor, the "Nikon-reported" resolution of 8256x5504 pixels, as what seems recognized and used by Photoshop and Camera Raw, is not the "true resolution" of 8288x5520 pixels, which is reported by Deep Sky Stacker and likely the resolution used by Sequator (I can't find what it is using for a D850 NEF). What I learned, to call Peter's workflow here a "RAW first process", is that if one edits a D850 NEF in Camera Raw and saves it, a size of 8150x5433 pixels is used as the Adobe Default. That size can be changed to 8280x5520 which maintains the same aspect ratio, but not 8288x5520 of the true resolution. Thus, one cannot save a NEF to a TIFF or other format from Camera Raw in a size that will be compatible with DSS or Sequator's use of the true D850 resolution. This means for DSS that registration and stacking will not proceed due to size discrepancies with respect to the calibration image sizes or, that Sequator will proceed but later show errors presumably 1 per each file that mismatches in size against the calibration files. So, if you want to go with this "RAW first" approach for a Nikon D850, you will need to do so for only the star images (lights) and forego calibration images. Otherwise, all NEFs or FITs for your calibration images would need to be cropped and saved to the slightly smaller 8280x5520-pixel size that the edited NEFs are saved to, and that would be an unwieldy extra task for the workflow.
Great video with clear concise steps for processing- thank you!! Peter, what would be an auto guider that I could get for a sky adventurer star tracker?
I wish I was able to use the Deep Sky Stacker; that 2GB memory allocation is killing the process unless I reduce the resolution by a lot. Just too bad that the developer stopped working on this.
Great video - working on your raw images and saving them as TIFF is a really smart thing! It will definitely change my workflow.
Thank you for sharing the video.
Peter great video. See when you use filter - blur - gausian blur, did you know you can just blur the layer mask and preview it in real time. Same but quicker and more control.
Love it .. i like ur work flow for removing the color noise and all but I do prefer to still shoot darks and flats and to engage all the +++ on sequator or my images come out super washed since I'm in super light polluted skies
Surfing and found your sight,I see how you get thru lp using your narrowband filters but can I get galaxy images in my what has become terribly light polluted skies or is it a lost cause?
Excellent thank you 👍🏻
Thank you. Is it possible to make these steps completely without software plans? Maybe Gimp can substitute Photoshop?
Hey Peter!
Great stuff, as usual
Own the ioptron skytracker pro, with a sony alpha 7 dslr+135mm rokinon lens, last week I took my first attempt to catch DSO's
Struggled a bit with polar alignment and finding balance, set the timer at first 5x60 sec but as I reviewed shots, I've noticed a lot of diffences amongst photos even during this relatively short period of time
Is it because this rig is not good enough for this kind of astro? or it was just a misaligment/balancing problem? maybe both a bit right? so I'm not really sure how can I get the wanted result
I usually see people stacking huge amount of photos during these DSO procedures and I don't really see how, autoguide is a must?
What is the maximum period time which you can work with a tracker/lens like that without an autoguide? Can you process a decent DSO photo from that or it depends on many kind of things?
Thanks in advance,
Balázs Ujvári
Thanks for the great video, Pete!
While I do use the "other workflow," you presented a LOT of techniques in Photoshop that I've never seen before. I can use this info TODAY to make better images. Than you!
Hi, thx for this awesome tutorial. My question is when you synched your lights, you didn't synch the calibration frames. Does it mean it is not necessary, or can it really mess up the tiffs before stacking?
@PeterZelinka just wondering if you still have the TIFF file? link doesnt seem to be working and id love to follow along!
Quick question? I have a Nikon D5500 and Sigma 150-600mm lens with a 2.0 T.C. Is it possible to get pictures of Jupiter and Saturn without a Tracker?
Excellent video. Thanks so much for doing this’
Excellent video! I wish you could do this in Affinity photo for iPad! Thanks for great video!
Very useful. I understand why you would use a colour profile with such a limited colour gamut. srgb is perfectly suited for device viewing but it's not clear in your video that it is certainly not recommended for a print outcome. ProPhoto RGB is best suited for print.
Shouldn't a color cast be subtracted out of the photo instead of changing the color of the whole image by adjusting your white balance? Working on subtracting something that's in your photo is a better overall result than adding something in to solve the issue, right? I'm just trying to learn best. Thank you.
I have ipolar, is an auto guider better? It seems like it's the same thing
Thank you so much Peter
What is the best budget lens for a7iii to capture milky way
Siril is good one for stacking, works win, mac and linux
Worst software of all of it 🤣
Great series. Thank you.
Outstanding! That was what I was needing to navigate PS.
Hey Peter, Just curious if you have tried HDR to get that core to not be overblown? Great video and awesome advice!
Great video! How does this workflow differ from a landscape+milkyway shot?
so amazing
Can you do a processing tutorial for some of us don't want to pay for Photoshop .... may gimp or something else that's free?
Is there a reason Astrophotographers don't use Helicon Focus or Serene Stacker for stacking images?
Awesome series! Thanks for your effort for us noobs! Photoshop has doubled in price since this video. Not really great for hobbyists. I'm sticking with my CS6 until I can no longer use it or my computer dies.
Editing first workflow doesn't work with dss. Incompatible width hight colour.
You don't need to gaussian blur your masks. Just pull in the feather slider, its what it is there for :)
Great video.
If you are game to test it out, Affinity Photo for iPad is awesome! They also have a desktop version. Super reasonable price. I only use an iPad and now iPad Pro recently. It gives people that may not have access to desktop like myself to do some awesome editing for astrophotography. Check it out!
Ever use a catadioptric lens before?
I did read that your base image should be the best image and not to include in your start images in Sequator.
Have you ever tried closing your eyepiece when taking long exposure it can eliminate that purple in your shots
What?
@@tdawg719 On dslr cameras light leak happens through the eyepiece as well so I found that closing the eyepiece or covering it up will stop that purple tint you get from it
@@larrycrain4505 Good point. Nikon supplies an eyepiece blanker.
@@AntPDC did you try that and did it work out for you
@@larrycrain4505 Nikon supplies that eyepiece blanker for a good reason given the light leakage you referred to. I saw no reason not to use it, so I cannot vouch for the consequences of not using it.
Why don’t we take a longer exposure if we have a star tracker ? If we still get star trails after 30sec. Then we can do the whole process manually without a star tracker ! The only difference is that you don’t have to touch your camera every 30 sec. I’m kind of confused 🤷🏻♂️
th-cam.com/video/3RH93UvP358/w-d-xo.html
My light frames dont look nearly that good
I use Siril
Can I use GIMP instead of Photoshop? Want open source (or a least free) software can I use instead of the adobe stack?