I have screen-copied and commented some basic steps of my workflow and made a video of it. It ended up 1/2 an hour long and I found it quite boring in the end. So I hesitated a while to load it up. But at last it had been too much work for the waste bin. So if you like you may watch the first part now on YouTube. Other clips will follow if the resonance is positive.


While I worked on the video I became aware that it is not possible to get only near to the maximum processing results within short demonstrations of the single basic steps. But a start is a start and everybody has to go its own way.

Any feedback, comments and critics are welcome.

Pete


P.S. At least on my system the full-screen icon of the ebedded video refuses to work. I recommend to click on the YOUTUBE icon in the lower right corner to watch the video in full-hd on YouTube

And here is Part 2 with stretching basics, noise reduction with masks, SMI ....

Thanks Pete! It's good to have some inkling of how you do it. I have to admit that I'm still a little hazy on the details of (e.g.) creating the masks, even though you go so far as to specify the keystrokes you're using. I suppose that in a perfect world I'd hire you to to fly over here and tutor me. (OK, in a perfect world I'd have the brainpower to just figure it out.)

Thank you for sharing. That's what I really love about this forum, that everybody just wants everybody else to do great images.

You're welcome! But Photoshop is not presupposing brainpower - just needs getting used to it. Me for example is having biggest trouble getting used to Pixinsight. I have bought it because I had the feeling everybody above a certain level uses PI. But I can't ! I have the feeling I would need a second life to get as far in PI as I already am in PS.

And concerning the videos.....it's strange to act as a "tutor" - I even feel queasy to here my boring voice on TV. I hesitated a long time because I was not shure if it is adequate for me to appear as a "tutor" and still do not have answered this question.

I like to share my ideas here and I like the feedback. This group is really a SOCIAL group. And looking back three years from now I have the feeling all of us have benefitted and learned a lot from each other in that period. And remember: we are few! You have to search for pentaxians in the astro forums all over the world. And that fact alone is an argument for all of us to get better !

Concerning the shortcuts: they really help and I only need a few of them - but they make everything much faster...Here is a link to a compilation of the most important PS shortcuts for Apple and WIN with a download option for a pdf. For me it is enough to use about 5-10 of them to copy and to merge layers, call up levels&curves and to invert selections and masks. They are easy to train and save me 100dreds of mousclicks in each processing. https://cdn.makeawebsitehub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/setupablogtoday-p...-sheet-fin.pdf

Thanks for sharing that Pete, you make it look so easy! I'm using PSE 14 with Nik and Topaz plugins and I think most of what you did is going to work, except for the action part. You may hear from me when I get around trying this out as I will certainly have questions.

Thanks again.

Don't hesitate to ask. The actions I use are not too important just bring more conveniance (except GradX, it is complex to fight gradients without it). My main intention in the second clip was to show how important it is to act very careful and exact with the curves tool and to demonstrate the power and importance of masking to habe the effects work only where they shoulsd work.

Now that I am home (well, at work) I think I will check this out!

Finally part 3 with high pass sharpening and color enhancing techniques und some trick that often helps agains blown out halos if properly used.


Hope you found some of this helpful or at leat interesting. Please remember that this tutorial is not meant as a recipe how to process astroimages fro A to Z. It is more demo of some basic tools and skills that can be used universally in different situations during the process. Looking back one of the most important things for me was to understand what importance the use of masks esp. copies of (inverted) screen content as luminance masks has to gain control on where and how the applied effects are effective.

Cheers Pete

[rubs hands] Oh boy oh boy!

I tried out some of this on some rather poor data I captured from M31 the other night. And got rather poor results. BUT they were much better than what I'd gotten previously with my "yank one Curves layer till it looks about right" so-called "method"!

Thanks @Pete_XL for this. Haven't seen much yet but plan to

Out of curiosity, which Topaz products? I seek better settings for DeNoise and Detail specifically for astro. Of course they don't ship presets for our tiny market segment.

ReMask, as I have raved before, is the landscape astrophotographer's very best friend. Composite untracked landscape full of trees and fiddly horizon details to tracked skyscape? 2 minutes, tops.

Thanks, will have to look through on weekend and maybe try to apply something for Milky Way shots.

BTW, maybe someone has recommendations for good videos with Milky Way stacking and blending, and fixing the vignetting for separate files? Or maybe someone wants to do a video (I would even provide the files ). I try, but still get darker lines through the middle.

Tutorials galore: Lonely Speck - How to Photograph the Milky Way – Astrophotography Tutorials, Tools, Gear + Inspiration

Thanks, I know them - however, the tutorial for MW stacking there is mostly for one image with multiple shots (multiexposure stacking and such). I have multiple images (panorama), thus adding panorama, blending, decreasing noise and increasing stars brightness at the same time is not something that is shown in tutorials. Unfortunately.
I already pull out way more then I expected initially from shots taken in light polluted location, but I am quite bad with PS and thought maybe somebody can give some nice tutorials for this specific part. (P.S. the biggest problem is that I do not use and do not like Lightroom).

Evie, are you using Photoshop's Photomerge to stitch your images? I sometimes struggle with that too. I am completely unable to take on any new project whatsoever for at least a week, but if you post again mid-month I might be able to see what I can do with your data. No master I, but landscape MW used to be all I did before this crew got me started on DSOs. ("The first sub-exposure is free", they said. BEWARE THE EVIL TEMPTORS!)

Speaking of noise reduction, I tried asking Topaz Labs what they thought good astro settings for Denoise (and Detail) might be. Haven't heard back yet, but will post if anything useful ensues.