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Dean Wilson's picture

Stonehenge on the Columbia

CC, Please!

I am new to Astrophotography and also Lightroom/Photoshop.

I am bothered by the Magenta and would like to have issues like this resolved in-camera, but...

Not sure about the 11 satellites!

EOS-R 15-35mm f/2.8
f/2.8 | 10 sec | ISO 1600 | 15mm

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6 Comments

Are you hip to masking in PS? Is this a single image?

Single image.

Well ideally - you'd want to dual process this image and blend them together using masks in PS, so you can adjust your WB for the sky to be more neutral without making the foreground look bad.

I highly suggest getting Royce Bair's Nightscape E-Book as he talks about how to properly set WB ect.

http://intothenightphoto.blogspot.com/2015/01/milky-way-nightscapes-eboo...

Thank you sir, I have your link bookmarked!

I have watched a few videos about masking and it seems easy enough...until I try it a few days later.

Again, thank you.

This is excellent for a 1st time and is excellent just as is. To keep the processing simple use Lr mainly. First look at the Dark Horse Nebula (looks like a smiling face but is pegasus (horse with wings) study the color (a great capture by camera WB) the wings (left) are magenta and the right is a shade of blue (not like the sky). Below is the Galactic Center which due to being low in the sky at time is magenta due to dirty atmosphere, should be pure white.
1. Select a color profile I like portrait, then go down and select lens profile and check Remove Chromatic Aberration and last at top use the color picker on stonehenge or lit ground for color.
2. lower highlight and whites (but watch details and prevent dullness). Plus the shadows bringing out the foreground and some inside. Down on the Tone curve sliders up highlights and lights to brighten overall and shadows if you like.
The fun parts and secrets:
1. Use a graduated filter (saturation) on the sky, pull down about the top of stonehenge (use shift key to keep level) but a wide for a good blend and lower Saturation a bit to get a good dark grey/blue look, also some clarity, texture and dehaze (play with all sliders to see effects) but look at stars for brightness but no holes around.
2. Satellites well zoom in to 200 -300% and use the Spot removal tool feather wide in clone go over each, may have to go big so no trace.
3. the secret: LR is best for this -Use the Radial Filter inverted Temp put the center on the lowest wing of pegasus and encircle MW (wide) and elongate from lower MW to the left upper edge. Add like + 4 to + 8 for a good Magenta may have to reduce saturation to brighten. Also to bring out pegasus and wings some clarity and texture but to darken the horse's outline some dehaze. This will affect the whole MW also so watch. Something new Brush check brush overlay this will show every where radial filter covers hold alt (-) and brush away the red part over Stonehenge and ground. uncheck and look at everything and adjust sliders like highlights and whites + and shadows and darks - or + dehaze.
4. a.Next an adjustment brush first neg saturation, shadows pos light/ white and brush over galactic center adjust for bright white.
b. temp brush neg 2 temp pos 2 dehaze pos highlights/white brush over pegasus and inside way part adjust till a 3D look and a bright pegasus but detailed horse/way (deep blue or dark). May have to do a temp for both sides or pegasus magenta for the left and a light blue for the right (should look like you orgental image but brighter some). There is a space above pegasus but a cloud part above that a light magenta brush just play, maybe not.
Lastly for the noise from texture and clarity do not use Lr's, softens and turn off sharpening. If you have use Topaz Denoise select low light, it will sharpen as well as reduce the noise, after six years the best of any!!! And if you want a big poster print use Topaz Gigapixel.
Next time you go there bring some colored wands and put inside and around each pillar. If in August a vertical but facing the city glow that can be controlled with some brushes also. Learn to do panos and get the arch above you will be facing away from city glow. In early season Feb or March you may also get snow. Try to keep car headlights off shadows can be brought out!

Thank you very much. I Copy/Paste 'd your instructions.

The light source was with the flashlight on my cell phone. I had my wife hold her hand over the light and said "Okay" and "Stop", during the exposure. A timing was a guess on my part.

Because it is such a Tourist Trap many shots were effected by car headlights coming and going, people walking around with flashlights

I finally left at 1:30 am and there were still people coming and going.

I am heading their again in August (new moon) with a fellow photographer.

Here is another image I am working on same lighting methodology.