Milky Way advice needed...

[alfaholic]

Hello everyone,

Somewhere in April I bought Tokina 11-16 f2.8 and soon after I made some night shots without planing, the Moon was high in the sky, there is light pollution everywhere, but somehow I was satisfied with results. These are some of my shots:



I decided to plan it next time and 15. of July was my choice for Milky Way because there is no Moon, so I went to the same place with prepared coordinates and azimuth, but I forgot that at this time of the year there is corn almost 2 meters high.
I finally found another place which is much better, but then I forgot how scary it can be when there is no Moon, with all wild animals making strange noise around me.

All in all I made some shots of Milky Way, but I am not satisfied. Here is one of my shots, raw file and processed one:




I would like to know what you think about it, is the original photo too faint, or my editing technique needs improvement?

 

[J-see]

What I find is that when using blending modes in PS or any other program allowing such, that you can push it very easy.

Here I just copied the layer and used color dodge at 70% opacity. Don't pay attention to the bottom part, that needs more work than I invested into it. It's just to show you can push or pull it quite a bit by using blending modes:

VS

You can do better than me on the full image. It requires some work since you'll not only affect the milky way but the light pollution too. With a mask and different opacity erasing you'll get it tweaked as you desire.

 

[Scott Murray]

Hello everyone,

Somewhere in April I bought Tokina 11-16 f2.8 and soon after I made some night shots without planing, the Moon was high in the sky, there is light pollution everywhere, but somehow I was satisfied with results. These are some of my shots:

View attachment 169397 View attachment 169398

I decided to plan it next time and 15. of July was my choice for Milky Way because there is no Moon, so I went to the same place with prepared coordinates and azimuth, but I forgot that at this time of the year there is corn almost 2 meters high.
I finally found another place which is much better, but then I forgot how scary it can be when there is no Moon, with all wild animals making strange noise around me.

All in all I made some shots of Milky Way, but I am not satisfied. Here is one of my shots, raw file and processed one:

View attachment 169399 View attachment 169400


I would like to know what you think about it, is the original photo too faint, or my editing technique needs improvement?

Here is a detailed youtube clip very handy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOAmP7A_x6c