Hello everybody. I'm new here to fstoppers. I was looking to get some feedback on these milkyway shots. These shots were the first time I tried stacking several photos to help reduce noise. I had a hard time aligning the photos. I actually had to try it manually (photoshop never seems to work for me the way it does for people in youtube tutorials haha!) Is the post processing too much on these photos? Any helpful feedback would be appreciated. Also any photoshop tips would also be appreciated! Thanks!
Welcome. I think for your first time stacking, you did OK. One thing I will say is that getting good MW shots at a beach introduces an element of challenge that you don't get in drier climates, sea mist.
For the 10 or so night sessions I did last year stacking images, I hated it. I too had issues with PS not aligning properly. To mitigate that, I bought a sky tracker. lol. PS does a much better job now aligning 10 tracked images because there is very little movement from image to image.
As far as post processing, It's a matter of opinion. Do what you like. Almost all, and I mean all MW images are processed unrealistically anyway. I've been in the darkest of skies, and I can tell you it's impossible to see the color in the MW with the naked eye. Yes, you can see the MW and even many of its dust lanes, but not the color.
With that said, I tend to not change the color of my MW much on my images, but I track and stack 10+ images, so I'm capturing a lot of color. I may move sliders up to 10 here and 10 there, but nothing drastic. For my taste, your MW has too much purple in it and your color is too bright in contrast to the amount of dark you have.
Find images you like, and strive to achieve similar results.
Thank you for your comments! They were very helpful.