C&C For An Astro Photo

[omair]

Here's a photo from my trip to Zion National Park - it's a pic of the milky way over the iconic Watchman mountain on the Parus trail.



It's been awhile since I did an astro edit - so any tips welcome.



I think there's supposed to be colors in the milky way core - like kind of greens or yellows- how do I bring that out?

I think my sky looks a little purplish and a little overcooked? Thoughts? I've tried make it bluer and fainter but it stil looks "off"

Does the water reflection look too bright?

 

[Sittatunga]

Here's a photo from my trip to Zion National Park - it's a pic of the milky way over the iconic Watchman mountain on the Parus trail.

It's been awhile since I did an astro edit - so any tips welcome.

I think there's supposed to be colors in the milky way core - like kind of greens or yellows- how do I bring that out?

I think my sky looks a little purplish and a little overcooked? Thoughts? I've tried make it bluer and fainter but it stil looks "off"

Does the water reflection look too bright?

Yes, it's a lovely composition but the shadows in the reflection looks quite a bit brighter than the shadows in the landscape above it - I'd have expected the reflection to be a couple of stops darker than the original. What bothers me more though is the vastly different colour balance between the warm landscape and the cold sky. The sky looks as if it's been captured with a tungsten light colour balance instead of daylight, which always looks very strange outdoors. The landscape almost looks like a sunset capture.

 

[omair]

Here's a photo from my trip to Zion National Park - it's a pic of the milky way over the iconic Watchman mountain on the Parus trail.

It's been awhile since I did an astro edit - so any tips welcome.

I think there's supposed to be colors in the milky way core - like kind of greens or yellows- how do I bring that out?

I think my sky looks a little purplish and a little overcooked? Thoughts? I've tried make it bluer and fainter but it stil looks "off"

Does the water reflection look too bright?

Yes, it's a lovely composition but the shadows in the reflection looks quite a bit brighter than the shadows in the landscape above it - I'd have expected the reflection to be a couple of stops darker than the original. What bothers me more though is the vastly different colour balance between the warm landscape and the cold sky. The sky looks as if it's been captured with a tungsten light colour balance instead of daylight, which always looks very strange outdoors. The landscape almost looks like a sunset capture.

I see what you mean - it actually is a single frame - but I think the post processing got out of hand. Thanks for the advice! I’ll have to rework it to look more naturally dark - but without losing all that foreground into total shadow.

 

[Andy01]

Start by changing the RAW file WB to daylight - that alone will warm up your skies a fair bit and help get rid of the purple/blue colour cast.

I agree that it has the potential to be a great image, but the purple/blue sky is overpowering IMO.

Have a lot at Roger Clark's website (clarkvision.com) for tips on how to process (and shoot) an astro image - very useful (to me at least).

 

[DavidWright2010]

I played around with the histogram (ala ClarkVision directions) and got this:



David