#STARRY LANDSCAPE STACKER HOW TO MATCH THE#
#STARRY LANDSCAPE STACKER MANUAL LABOR INVOLVED#

Since capturing photos of the Milky Way pushes the limits of modern day camera sensors, this is not always an easy task. Select all of your frames to open them in Starry Landscape Stacker.I started taking photos of the night sky three years ago and quickly became a stickler for getting as clean of an image as I possibly could with the gear that I had. Note, you can select multiple files by command clicking them. Simply navigate to and select all your frames (in my case there are 10 of them) and hit open. When you first open Starry Landscape Stacker, itвЂ™ll open up a dialog to open your images.

Starry Landscape Stacker How To Match The

While the process of stacking is actually fairly simple, it has two noticeable complications. However, the MacOS program, Starry Landscape Stacker, described in Chapter 7, attempts to do just that align and stack the sky and ground separately. One of my initial hurdles will be knowing how to match the edits that would be done with another more mainstream software such as Photoshop to insert into Starry Landscape.

Starry Landscape Stacker Manual Labor Involved

The problem for me and many others is that it is not available for Windows operating systems. Free programs such as Deep Sky Stacker tend to work well for images without foregrounds such as deep space astrophotos however, I personally have never been able to get good results because of the steep learning curve and due to the foregrounds in my images.There is a program called Starry Landscape Stacker for Mac computers that I have heard excellent reviews of from other astrophotographers. Photoshop can perform the process with good results and is the program I currently use in my workflow, but there is a level of manual labor involved to combine sky and foreground images after the stacking is complete, and Photoshop doesn't come free, which will be a deal-breaker for those on a budget. However, many of these programs either cost money or are not terribly effective at stacking images when a foreground is involved. Jordan PhotographyThere are available programs that are designed to reduce noise in photos via image stacking. And second, if your image has a foreground in it, alignment of each exposure becomes tricky because the stars appear to move from frame to frame while the land below remains in the same place.

It offers the main function of stacking night sky images for the purpose of reducing noise, while also attempting to assist along the way with challenges that often arise during astrophotography such as distortion, light pollution, hot pixels, and more. Basic FeaturesSequator is a simple program, both in terms of the design and in terms of the features it offers. Since my current workflow involves aligning and stacking images in Photoshop, I decided to use the speed and results of Photoshop as a measuring stick to compare to Sequator. And there really isnвЂ™t any bad news to go with it, other than the fact that from what I can tell, the program has been around since at least 2015 and I just never knew about itвЂ¦As soon as a heard about Sequator I knew I wanted to see what it could do in case I could use the program to assist in simplifying and speeding up my workflow for processing night sky photos.

SettingsWhile the functions above are the bare bones steps necessary to process your images with the programs, there are several other features you should consider in order to get the most out of the software. Sequator can output your file as a 16-bit TIFF, so rest assured that the resulting image can be brought back into an editing program such as Lightroom or Photoshop and be further processed to your heartвЂ™s content. Lastly, you name your вЂњoutput imageвЂќ, which is essentially a вЂњSave AsвЂќ function you carry out before Sequator processes your images. (Sequator picks the middle image in the sequence of photos you load, but a different base image can also be assigned manually.) You can also choose to add вЂњnoise imagesвЂќ, which are dark frames you took in the field to map long exposure noise in your image or вЂњvignetting imagesвЂќ which map the darkening in the corners of the images often noticeable on wide-angle lenses shot at wide apertures. You open up the night sky images you wish to stack under the menu labeled вЂњStar ImagesвЂќ and Sequator will both load these photos into the program and chose an image from this batch to use as a вЂњbase imageвЂќ.

The basic questions you need to ask yourself are вЂњDo I have a foreground in my image?вЂќ and вЂњDo I want pinpoint stars or star trails?вЂќ. I wonвЂ™t go through the ins and outs of every setting here since a straight forward manual is available on the Sequator website, but I will mention the ones I found to be most useful for getting good results in the stacking process and which ones didn't seem to be helpful.In the Composition tab, you have a few basic options to decide on based on the images you are stacking and what you want your output file to look like. However, selecting which of these features you will want to utilize during the stacking process will vary from image to image, especially because the effectiveness of some of these features can be somewhat inconsistent.

In Photoshop, you will need to spend time masking out the foreground in each image to align the stars, only to later have to blend the resulting image with a blurry foreground with a foreground base image. This is where the program really sets itself apart. If you do, select the вЂњStar TrailsвЂќ option instead.The Sky Region setting allows you to help Sequator to determine which part of the image is your sky and which part is your foreground.

I was hoping this feature would help to remove sagittal astigmatism and comatic aberrations in the corners of images, but I didnвЂ™t find this to be the case in any of my tests.Reduce Light Pollution The result of using the вЂњreduce light pollutionвЂќ option in Sequator.Another hopefully helpful feature unique to night sky photos is the Reduce Light Pollution setting, which is meant to be used when your photos were taken under light polluted skies. Give this setting a try if your exposures were long enough that you have random, bright, colored pixels that need to be removed from the image.Sequator also has a setting meant to remove streaking of stars in the corners of images that occur from wide angle distortion. If you find that your output image is too bright and has blown out highlights, try selecting one of these options to help.The Remove Dynamic Noises setting is meant to remove hot pixels that are the result of sensor heating caused by capturing long exposures. The Irregular Mask function in Sequator.Auto Brightness Control and High Dynamic RangeThe Auto Brightness Control and High Dynamic Range options are similar and are both meant to control the exposure of the output image during the stacking process. For tricky, uneven foregrounds, the Irregular Mask tool is the way to go. In Sequator, however, you only need to differentiate the sky from the foreground on your base image and Sequator will figure it out from there.In order to differentiate the foreground from the sky, you can use the вЂњBoundary LineвЂќ, which draws a simple linear barrier between sky and foreground (this works well for a simple flat horizon), the вЂњGradientвЂќ tool, or the вЂњIrregular Mask.вЂќ By using the Irregular Mask tool, you can use your mouse to paint a mask over the sky in your image, using your mouseвЂ™s scroll wheel to change the size of the brush.

However, the results Sequator yielded definitely surprised and impressed me. The ResultsI was not entirely sure what to expect with Sequator, especially given how much precision and control I could achieve stacking and blending exposures in Photoshop. However, that doesnвЂ™t mean it isnвЂ™t worth experimenting with.This option merges pixels in your image in the interest of reducing files size. I didnвЂ™t find it terribly useful in the photos I stacked, and I think the same effect could be achieved with more control in later post-processing. At its worst, the Reduce Light Pollution function yielded the results you see to the right.Another option that you can test on an image-to-image basis is Enhance Starlight, which is meant to give the stars in your photo a bit more pop. It may vary from image to image, so give it a try if you have light pollution you are trying to get rid of, but the feature seems to just try to drop the blacks in the sky and increase contrast, which is something that could be done with more control with a RAW editing program such as Lightroom later in post-processing.

Starry Landscape Stacker Mac