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Gary Compton's picture

Just got back from NZ and had my first try at astrophotography

Definitely have a lot to learn but am already planning to head to some dark skies in Sydney when I get a chance...

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Have you tried luminosity in Photoshop ? It helps bring up the stars better.

Any examples you can show me Campbell? happy for you to edit any of my photos

Thanks Campbell, not a fan of overdoing the post processing

https://fstoppers.com/groups/102129/astrophotography/116252/astro-photos...
Take a look at two I posted a few weeks ago from York, Western Australia. I used luminosity to select the lights only from the stars.I learned the technique of YouTube.

Nice series! As Campbell mentioned, it wouldn't hurt to bring the stars out a bit more in post. I like the foreground in image in 2 is cool although it feels like you could rotate the image 10-15 degrees clockwise so the guardrail comes out of the corner. Love how the moonlight is lighting up the foreground in the last image.

Thanks Richard, I think it was a car headlights and not the moon lighting up the rock formation in the last image

Hey Gary! Nice photos for your first try! What I do, to bring out the milkyway is to use the "expose to the left" method. You can find it on youtube. The 2nd thing i do is a adjusment curve: I select the darkest spot in the milkyway, drag it down and select the lightest spot in the milkyway and drag it up. You then end up with a S-curve. I then use a mask to brush in the needed amount of contrast.

Here's my example:
https://fstoppers.com/photo/88978

Back in Oz now and shot the milky way last night

latest shot

I started doing astrophotography too.. It is really great! Im taking a night sky workshop at the beginning of june in maine.. can't wait! here is a few of mine from last year