Tried out a different approach in post-processing this pic.

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Andromeda Galaxy, I shot this in July. The normal procedure for an astrophotography subject like this is to use software to automatically align and stack a few dozen images which are then flattened into a TIFF. I use RawTherapee and GIMP for the post-processing mostly, but I do have Luminar4 available and I am trying to use it more.

In July I followed my more normal workflow and adjusting to produce this photo.

bgHJb2L.jpg

I came back to this photo, going so far as to do the original stacking step over again. But I decided to instead process the subject and the background separately. I did this by duplicating the image into a second layer and masking the galaxy on the top layer. Now I look at it and wonder if I went overboard, or maybe did not smooth the edges of the mask good enough for a natural looking blend?

K1WJlwT.jpg
 

kevy73

Senior Member
It certainly looks a lot clearer in the 2nd version... whether it is overdone or not is a personal thing... I don't think it looks overdone.
 

Mike150

Senior Member
Like Peter, I like both versions as well. I'm leaning toward the second one though. Would it be too much to ask camera settings and number of photos for the stacking? If my health improves and once this Covid crap is over I hope to get back to the woods to shoot again.
 

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Thank-you for the too-kind comments. Normally I am my own harshest critic.
@Mike150 : I shoot Raw+Jpeg so I will upload a straight Jpeg from camera with the EXIF intact. You can see my starting point that way also. Looks like I stacked 12 images out of 15 taken. Dew was forming and I had to stop. I was just ending a night of photographing comet NEOWISE. I have since bought a lens dew heater.
DSC_1172.jpg

ISO 3200 f/6 and 40 seconds
 
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