Milky Way Processing Light Polluted Areas

[Interceptor121]

Following from my previous post I have explored two paths as suggested

The first was to change stacking from DSS to Sequator I have done that essentially tho I have identical results Sequator is much faster

The second part was about removing light pollution and here I have tried the tools in the Siril app but they make the image unreal with a completely dark background they also suck all the color away from the stars

So I went on doing my own home made gradient and adjustments and then compared siril histogram stretch with rnc from RN Clark this is the method I favoured at the end

Finally some cosmetic adjustments in photoshop and as very final step a graduated filter in lightroom for the light pollution coming back after stretch

First image one of the subs

Sample

Last image the processed image after crop

I think this is as far as I can go for now next step find some other better location!

I am not performing white balance and keeping temperature to daylight along the process so there is a residual gradient but I rather keep that than loosing star colours

Interested in some feedback

--
instagram http://instagram.com/interceptor121
My flickr sets http://www.flickr.com/photos/interceptor121/
Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/interceptor121
Underwater Photo and Video Blog http://interceptor121.com

 

[daveco2]

Experimentation with Lightroom brushes would be very helpful for local feathered adjustments over the MW, excluding the background: contrast, exposure, saturation, vibrance, clarity.

 

[Interceptor121]

I have found that on this specific image it doesn’t add anything it was the first thing I did The clouds soon go overboard with saturation and clarity literally does nothing to it

I tried the opposite and brush the rest to reduce saturation but it breaks with banding

one thing that seems to work up to 15 is dehaze but mostly on the background and then it goes into banding

of course you can do those things anyway and the image no longer looks credible

This is with the brush in lightroom working on all dimensions I see no improvement what would help is to tone down the background however I am not able to find a way to fine tune it as I wish. Probably layers in photoshops and curves are the way to go

--
instagram http://instagram.com/interceptor121
My flickr sets http://www.flickr.com/photos/interceptor121/
Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/interceptor121
Underwater Photo and Video Blog http://interceptor121.com

 

[Giank-1957]

do you know the Astronomik anti pollution filters?

https://www.astronomik.com/en/clip-filter/clip-filter-fur-sony-alpha-7r-7s.html

Bye

Giancarlo

I have found that on this specific image it doesn’t add anything it was the first thing I did The clouds soon go overboard with saturation and clarity literally does nothing to it

I tried the opposite and brush the rest to reduce saturation but it breaks with banding

one thing that seems to work up to 15 is dehaze but mostly on the background and then it goes into banding

of course you can do those things anyway and the image no longer looks credible

This is with the brush in lightroom working on all dimensions I see no improvement what would help is to tone down the background however I am not able to find a way to fine tune it as I wish. Probably layers in photoshops and curves are the way to go

 

[Interceptor121]

do you know the Astronomik anti pollution filters?

https://www.astronomik.com/en/clip-filter/clip-filter-fur-sony-alpha-7r-7s.html

Bye

Giancarlo

I have found that on this specific image it doesn’t add anything it was the first thing I did The clouds soon go overboard with saturation and clarity literally does nothing to it

I tried the opposite and brush the rest to reduce saturation but it breaks with banding

one thing that seems to work up to 15 is dehaze but mostly on the background and then it goes into banding

of course you can do those things anyway and the image no longer looks credible

This is with the brush in lightroom working on all dimensions I see no improvement what would help is to tone down the background however I am not able to find a way to fine tune it as I wish. Probably layers in photoshops and curves are the way to go

Not working for MFT. By now I am a master in gradient removal but frankly I need to go to better site!

--
instagram http://instagram.com/interceptor121
My flickr sets http://www.flickr.com/photos/interceptor121/
Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/interceptor121
Underwater Photo and Video Blog http://interceptor121.com

 

[nighthiker]

Hi!

These clip-in filters are interference filters with the well known limitations for (U)WA lenses. And they cannot remove a gradient neither.

The best tool is the DynamicBackgroundExtraction from PixInsight (even that it will be replaced by another module in the future) were you build a model of the background light pollution (or whatever you want to get rid off) and subtract it from the image afterwards. Sounds great but it can be a lot of manual tweaking and testing and still you might not be able to remove all the distracting light from your image. And PI isn't cheap but you will get all the updates afterwards.

There is also a more simple and cheaper GradientXTerminator (https://www.rc-astro.com/resources/GradientXTerminator/).

 

[Interceptor121]

Hi!

These clip-in filters are interference filters with the well known limitations for (U)WA lenses. And they cannot remove a gradient neither.

The best tool is the DynamicBackgroundExtraction from PixInsight (even that it will be replaced by another module in the future) were you build a model of the background light pollution (or whatever you want to get rid off) and subtract it from the image afterwards. Sounds great but it can be a lot of manual tweaking and testing and still you might not be able to remove all the distracting light from your image. And PI isn't cheap but you will get all the updates afterwards.

There is also a more simple and cheaper GradientXTerminator (https://www.rc-astro.com/resources/GradientXTerminator/).

It is not a problem you can do that in photoshop siril and other tools however with that also goes the milky way colours as well so i only use 50% and a mask

at the end I prefer it like this than turning some other color tho I did have a lighter color version

 

[Giank-1957]

.....

Thank you for reply & infos, I used the anti pollution filters with cameras and telescopes and the background improved moving to black instead to red tonality...

The best tool is the DynamicBackgroundExtraction from PixInsight (even that it will be replaced by another module in the future) were you build a model of the background light pollution (or whatever you want to get rid off) and subtract it from the image afterwards. Sounds great but it can be a lot of manual tweaking and testing and still you might not be able to remove all the distracting light from your image. And PI isn't cheap but you will get all the updates afterwards.

I noticed that P.I. is a bit expensive other than complex than other applications like Astroart, MaximDL or APT or others

There is also a more simple and cheaper GradientXTerminator (https://www.rc-astro.com/resources/GradientXTerminator/).

Good to know!!