Blend these images

[Ben Egbert]

Here is a milky way blend from last night. The sky is ISO3200 F4 30 seconds at 11mm.. The ground is ISO500 f4 300 seconds.

I am showing my attempt but Kyle has already made improvements in the Astro forum. So I am adding the untouched DNG files for you to download and blend and finish as you see fit.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Will work on this later tonight Ben.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Here is my attempt.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Thanks Jameel. I like this. I like the foreground grass. The mountain upper left is a bit bright. I used the darker version for that area.

 

[Dale Berlin]

Thanks Ben, good practice

 

[JimFox]

Thanks Ben, good practice

View attachment 32255

Good one Dale.

Threads like this are fun, because it gives us all a chance to play around and try some new things out.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Ben, sorry if you answered this question in the other thread. But any idea why the Milky Way was so washed out? Light Pollution? The Moon?

 

[JimFox]

Ben, here is a really quick attempt by me, I can share my ACR settings if you want them later. My main difference was I went + White to increase the brightness of the stars and Milky Way. It might sound counter intuitive since usually we go - (to the minus) with the Whites to save or recovery highlights.

The issue with doing that can be the horizon in shots like this will blow out even more. So this is a 3 layer blend. I conversion for the Milky Way, 1 conversion for the clouds and horizon, and 1 conversion for the ground.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Thanks Ben, good practice

View attachment 32255

Good blend deal and I like the crop

 

[Ben Egbert]

Ben, here is a really quick attempt by me, I can share my ACR settings if you want them later. My main difference was I went + White to increase the brightness of the stars and Milky Way. It might sound counter intuitive since usually we go - (to the minus) with the Whites to save or recovery highlights.

The issue with doing that can be the horizon in shots like this will blow out even more. So this is a 3 layer blend. I conversion for the Milky Way, 1 conversion for the clouds and horizon, and 1 conversion for the ground.

View attachment 32258

Thanks Jim, I saw this on my I-Phone this morning while I was in this same place for a sunrise Landscape. I like your idea of a triple blend and will try that as soon as I work this mornings images. I would very much like to see your ACR settings and especially WB. It did occur to me that 11m makes the stars really small. So maybe when I expand the stars I might go to 1.5 or 2.

 

[Nilo Photography]

Here is my attempt.

View attachment 32253

Love this version.

 

[JimFox]

Thanks Jim, I saw this on my I-Phone this morning while I was in this same place for a sunrise Landscape. I like your idea of a triple blend and will try that as soon as I work this mornings images. I would very much like to see your ACR settings and especially WB. It did occur to me that 11m makes the stars really small. So maybe when I expand the stars I might go to 1.5 or 2.

Thanks Ben,

My version looks too crunchy in the sky, but that was my fault as I was in too much of a hurry and had the Clarity too high in ACR and didn't check.

I didn't change your WB at all, I thought you had that set pretty well.

This was the settings for the stars and MW.

Exposure: + 2.30
Highlights: -52
Shadows: +60
Whites: +80
Blacks: 0
Clarity: 45
DeHaze: +80
Vibrance: 0
Saturation: 0

 

[Ben Egbert]

Ok, Jim here is my attempt using your settings. Going up 2.3 made the noise horrendus, maybe not seen on the downsized DNG. But here is my result.