Outstanding! Clear, to the point, easy to follow. And I have been searching seemingly forever to find a good tutorial and you far surpassed my hopes. Thank you!
Kenneth... I cant thank you enough for putting this tutorial together start to finish. You just made my day /month/year with this video. Thanks a million !! I've always wondered how the milky tuened out so clear and bright for certain people and your video just explained it !
Even after several years this is (in my opinion) THE definitive Milky Way Editing Tutorial... and yes, it works great with Photoshop CC! I've used this dozens of times, so thank you! Timestamps for those returning for refreshers and whatnot: 00:50 - Camera RAW Edits (Whole Image) Photoshop Edits: 4:33 - Curves (Foreground / Landscape) 6:55 - Making it Pop: Curves (Background / Milky Way) 10:45 - Bringing out the Detail: Unsharpen Mask (Background / Milky Way) 13:20 - Fixing Horizon Haze (Background / Milky Way) 16:08 - Saving the Image, before and after.
Hi Kenneth, Thanks for posting this video. I followed your process step by step on an image that I took in Cyprus of the Milky Way. The difference from last nights effort to my earlier effort is huge. I now have an image which is noise free and looks great. Thanks again and I look forward to seeing more of your images and videos. Lee (Manchester, UK)
This is THE BEST editing tutorial I have seen so far. This video really helped me learn how to process my images of stars really effectively. I haven't found anything even close to as good as this video anywhere else.
Thank you! Beyond the focus on sky photography, by specifying which keys you use to invoke commands you are broadening my (still narrowish) understanding of how to use PS. This is a help! Even bits about how to use Gaussian blur to soften edges of selection are new to me.
A most excellent tutorial I have learned a better way of separating foreground/backgrounds and then masking them for greater control. Thanks for a great video.
This is an awesome video, not only for the milky way editing but also just a few of the other little details in adjustments on the masks. Thankyou for the very easy to understand tutorial :D
This tutorial is by far the best. I do a lot of night time photography and I just recently got photoshop and this is my go-to video when I get stumped. Thank you!!!
thanks for the tutorial! I found it very helpful. Apart from learning how to improve my shots of the milky way, I also learned to use photoshop better. You are an excellent teacher.
pressing X to switch your palettes, from white to black or black to white and ctrl+i to invert the mask from white to black Great stuff by the way, learned lots especially since i use camera raw so often
Usually pretty wide, but it depends on how much of the milky way you want to capture. I've used lenses between 8mm - 50mm. Usually I shoot at very open aperture to gather as much light as possible. I will often stop down my 24mm 1.4 to F2 because it will sharpen the image. Typically I use my 24mm or 14mm with my full frame camera, and a 17mm or 8mm or my crop sensor camera.
Thanks for the link to the new tutorial. I see the photo editing of this first tutorial is only for a single photo while editing in the new tutorial is really for time-lapse. Thank you very much for showing your workflow. I follow the same system (Camera Raw & Bridge) and then just use Adobe Premiere to create the sequence, I've never used After Efects, I'll have to try. Thank you very much again. By the way, you have a great sky to get the most detail to the Milky Way.
When I started out THIS Tutorial helped me so so much!!! Can't believe it when I look at the uploading date how long this is already online! Just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU! :)
Wonderful technique! Very helpful, thank you for the time and effort in this video. One thing I'd offer...the greenish/reddish haze along the horizon...I believe that is actually "air glow"...the electrical double layer high in the atmosphere. The auroras, when they occur, tend to "sit" on top of this layer and reach up into space. Depends on taste, really, but sometimes I like having airglow in my night sky photos. You can usually only see it when the skies are really dark (FAR away from cities), so it's the mark of a great sky.
Just awesome! The image and the process afterward. Nice use of the masks. I hope to take shots like this in such dark sky locations. Keep up the good work.
Amazing that you were able to do this with a crop sensor camera and not a full frame. At 1600 ISO on a crop sensor, I would have expected much much more noise.
Great video thank you! Quick tip to fill a layer with a solid color hold option (Mac) and then delete for foreground color, or hold command (Mac) and hit delete for background color. This will save a couple steps getting the bucket tool.
Abxolutely brilliant! I have just taken my first miliky way shots and was struggling - tried several You Tube clips but none were as good as this. I now have a beautiful image....Thank you
Kenneth,, Thanks Man,, your easy way of talking and explaining your process makes anyone I'm sure feel they can do this with ease,, Now that is a talent,, I'll give it a try,, Thanks again. Sincerly, Willard Holmes
I have been editing the milky way with LR and getting blah results, your tutorial really opened my eyes to using photoshop... don't know why I didn't considered it before!
"How to edit the Milky Way - Photoshop Tutorial" :-) Another one of my most viewed videos form the vaults. I really hope you guys enjoy it, would love some feedback! #photoshop #photoshoptutorials #photography #space #milkyway #milkywayphotography
Hi Kenneth! Great tutorial. thanks! could you highlight on what settings can come handy while exporting images without loosing lot of work in these images. I am able to follow your tutorial here and there but I struggle to keep the sharpness and quality after I export to my laptop (jpg)..Cheers!!
***** export as a tiff and work in Photoshop as a tiff, use Photoshops save for web setting to convert to a JPEG then you can choose the compression settings :)
+Kenneth Brandon - Dark Sky Chaser How much a computerized pan/tilt telescope mount costs? Is it affordable by any means, or I have to sell a kidney? :) I intend to shoot the Milky Way using also a cropped DSLR (D3100), but I'm afraid of star trail at such a long exposure time
This was an awesome tutorial, thank you so much! BTW if no one has mentioned it in the comments already, you can alt+click on the mask button to automatically create a black mask instead of using the paint bucket.
Very nice indeed - and a good tutorial for layer masks for those who haven't encountered those before. I also learned quite a bit about Camera Raw, which I had not played with yet. The only thing on which I would ask for more information in your process is noise correction.
excellent tutorial all round, very well presented.. have shot some great images of the milkyway but nothing compared to these as of yet, still figuring it out on my new d800 and locations have been a little too bright so far but wow, this is where I will come when I get something suitable to edit
This is fantastic mate! I used Lr to edit my Milky Way shots for the last couple of years but now im happy to try out something new in Ps. Thanks for that great tutorial!
I'm fairly advanced with photography and processing but not so much with this type work. Love this video. Awesome. Just got an epic set last night in Cape Cod Mass over a lighthouse on a dark night like I've never seen. I'll share it when done. Awesome man!!
Hey Kenneth, Really great video! Appreciate you taking the time to make this video after putting a years worth of time into gaining the knowledge! I can't wait to see Mono Lake and Convict Lake myself. Hope you got out this July and took some great pics! Best, Adam
Great video. Thanks for all the details. Now, I just have to see if there is a way I can snap something even close to this photo without having a computerized mount...
To get the Milky Way you need as much light as possible. You're usually limited to between 15-30 second exposures depending on your camera and lens. Any longer and the stars will streak. Even when I'm tracking, I'm limited to about 45 seconds because I start getting star trails in the corners of the image. So to get as much light as possible with these constraints you usually want to shoot wide open and at a very high ISO.
Its awesome that you use a camera that matches theb specs that 85-90% dslr owners have. It shows that you can still take amazing images without dropping 6k on a camera body
Kenneth, I got some good tips from you in this vid. Unfortunately, when I actually needed it, I couldn't find it, but enough stuck that I was able to process something nice. I'm looking forward to following your method a bit more closely.
I learnt a lot from this and it helped me get something extra out of some images I'd been waiting to edit but wasnt sure how to get the most out of. Thank you :)
Kenneth, Outstanding tutorial! Very well down. This is exactly what I needed to see. I appreciate your slow and concise presentation. I look forward to your future tutorials.
Oh my god Kenneth. I watched a ton of RedKB as a kid for your puzzle videos. Now I stumble across this channel... damn. I just recently got into photography as well.
This video is excellent. Thank you for such an in-depth and easy to follow tutorial!! I've typically edited my night shots in Adobe Lightroom rather than PS simply because PS seems too complex. But I will give it a go and hopefully get good results thanks to your guidance! Thanks a lot for making this video!! Keep rocking it dude! (Oh and that picture is awesome!!!!)
I used Magic Lantern to get an on board intervelometer in the t3i. To find focus I just know where it is. :) You can put it in live view and try to find a bright star at 10x magnification.
1600 works pretty good with the Canon t3i. Any higher and it starts looking bad. It really helped to have the camera on the tracking mount. it let me keep the iso only at 1600. Otherwise I'd need it at least at 3200.
Outstanding! Clear, to the point, easy to follow. And I have been searching seemingly forever to find a good tutorial and you far surpassed my hopes. Thank you!
This is a brilliant video Kenneth! Detailed, with perfect hands-on examples! Very easy to understand! Thank you for this!
Kenneth... I cant thank you enough for putting this tutorial together start to finish. You just made my day /month/year with this video. Thanks a million !!
I've always wondered how the milky tuened out so clear and bright for certain people and your video just explained it !
Really liked the explaining of how to do this editing, a little fast but I can always click on the replay button! Very impressed!
After almost 1 year of search for such tutorial, finally I found it ... it is exactly what I needed ... thanks a lot.
Even after several years this is (in my opinion) THE definitive Milky Way Editing Tutorial... and yes, it works great with Photoshop CC! I've used this dozens of times, so thank you!
Timestamps for those returning for refreshers and whatnot:
00:50 - Camera RAW Edits (Whole Image)
Photoshop Edits:
4:33 - Curves (Foreground / Landscape)
6:55 - Making it Pop: Curves (Background / Milky Way)
10:45 - Bringing out the Detail: Unsharpen Mask (Background / Milky Way)
13:20 - Fixing Horizon Haze (Background / Milky Way)
16:08 - Saving the Image, before and after.
Hi Kenneth,
Thanks for posting this video.
I followed your process step by step on an image that I took in Cyprus of the Milky Way. The difference from last nights effort to my earlier effort is huge.
I now have an image which is noise free and looks great.
Thanks again and I look forward to seeing more of your images and videos.
Lee (Manchester, UK)
Great tutorial! I've been using Photoshop for years have still managed to learn a few things by watching this. Thanks!
Kenneth, best tutorial in milky way processing.... just great. Thanks!
This is THE BEST editing tutorial I have seen so far. This video really helped me learn how to process my images of stars really effectively. I haven't found anything even close to as good as this video anywhere else.
As a teacher with 30 years experience may i compliment your style. Well done.
Thank you! Beyond the focus on sky photography, by specifying which keys you use to invoke commands you are broadening my (still narrowish) understanding of how to use PS. This is a help! Even bits about how to use Gaussian blur to soften edges of selection are new to me.
Very easily the best night shoot tutorial I have ever seen...
A most excellent tutorial I have learned a better way of separating foreground/backgrounds and then masking them for greater control. Thanks for a great video.
This is an awesome video, not only for the milky way editing but also just a few of the other little details in adjustments on the masks. Thankyou for the very easy to understand tutorial :D
This tutorial is by far the best. I do a lot of night time photography and I just recently got photoshop and this is my go-to video when I get stumped. Thank you!!!
thanks for the tutorial! I found it very helpful. Apart from learning how to improve my shots of the milky way, I also learned to use photoshop better. You are an excellent teacher.
We need people like you to show us how its done, great video, and a thumbs up.
pressing X to switch your palettes, from white to black or black to white
and ctrl+i to invert the mask from white to black
Great stuff by the way, learned lots especially since i use camera raw so often
You sure made this clear and easy. I definitely learned small yet useful tricks within photoshop. You sir, have gained another SUB :)
Four and a half years later, thank you very much! Very clear and thorough!
I just shot the Milky Way for the first time last night and can't wait to download a PhotoShop trial to try this! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for this, so great to see someone happily sharing fantastic advice!
Usually pretty wide, but it depends on how much of the milky way you want to capture. I've used lenses between 8mm - 50mm. Usually I shoot at very open aperture to gather as much light as possible. I will often stop down my 24mm 1.4 to F2 because it will sharpen the image. Typically I use my 24mm or 14mm with my full frame camera, and a 17mm or 8mm or my crop sensor camera.
very generous of you to put this up for all of us...
its just perfect!!!
This is my all time favorite milky way editing tutorial
really helps
this is by far the best star edit i've seen
Very nice of you to share this, thanks very much
Thanks for the link to the new tutorial. I see the photo editing of this first tutorial is only for a single photo while editing in the new tutorial is really for time-lapse. Thank you very much for showing your workflow. I follow the same system (Camera Raw & Bridge) and then just use Adobe Premiere to create the sequence, I've never used After Efects, I'll have to try. Thank you very much again. By the way, you have a great sky to get the most detail to the Milky Way.
When I started out THIS Tutorial helped me so so much!!! Can't believe it when I look at the uploading date how long this is already online! Just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU! :)
Very, very helpful. Many thanks for sharing your hard earned techniques and secrets.
Wonderful technique! Very helpful, thank you for the time and effort in this video. One thing I'd offer...the greenish/reddish haze along the horizon...I believe that is actually "air glow"...the electrical double layer high in the atmosphere. The auroras, when they occur, tend to "sit" on top of this layer and reach up into space. Depends on taste, really, but sometimes I like having airglow in my night sky photos. You can usually only see it when the skies are really dark (FAR away from cities), so it's the mark of a great sky.
Very nice tutorial. Lots of good hints on layers and masks.
Just awesome! The image and the process afterward. Nice use of the masks. I hope to take shots like this in such dark sky locations. Keep up the good work.
By far one of the most helpful tutorials have ever seen, thank you 🙏🏻
Brilliant tutorial and easy to follow for a novice PS user. Thanks for taking the time to upload this.
This was the best tutorial i came across(the universe) about milky way editing. Thank you!
Thanks buddy, that focal lens and exposure chart makes puzzle complete.
What an amazing result!
Thanks very much for sharing this tutorial. Think I'll have to re-do all my milky-way pictures i made so far.
Awesome Kenneth! Just what I was looking for!
Amazing that you were able to do this with a crop sensor camera and not a full frame. At 1600 ISO on a crop sensor, I would have expected much much more noise.
Excellent! Best tutorials I have seen, thanks.
Thank you Kenneth, you make it look so easy.
This will be very helpful! I am going out on my first Milky Way shoot tonight. Thanks!
Excellent video. Picked up a tonne of post editing tips. Thanks!
Such an awesome tutorial, I utilize this to teach the editing of the milky way.
Thanks for this excellent tutorial Kenneth.
Great video thank you! Quick tip to fill a layer with a solid color hold option (Mac) and then delete for foreground color, or hold command (Mac) and hit delete for background color. This will save a couple steps getting the bucket tool.
Please don't ever delete this video...just wanted to say that I use it a lot and thanks. :)
Great tutorial Kenneth. I tried it and the results were excellent. Thanks
Thank you for taking the time to make this. Seriously helped.
great tutorial. I've often wondered how to get these amazing MW details.
Great tutorial. Thanks for taking the time to show this.
Abxolutely brilliant! I have just taken my first miliky way shots and was struggling - tried several You Tube clips but none were as good as this. I now have a beautiful image....Thank you
Kenneth,, Thanks Man,, your easy way of talking and explaining your process makes anyone I'm sure feel they can do this with ease,, Now that is a talent,, I'll give it a try,, Thanks again. Sincerly, Willard Holmes
Very helpful tutorial and your explanation skills are also on very good level. Thanks.
I have been editing the milky way with LR and getting blah results, your tutorial really opened my eyes to using photoshop... don't know why I didn't considered it before!
Thank you so much for this. Getting started with my first edits this week. This is most helpful.
That is an awesome tutorial! I am anxious to find a RAW file I can use to follow along and try all those techniques. Thanks so much....
IU'm new 2 all of those night shots and this really did help me.
"How to edit the Milky Way - Photoshop Tutorial" :-)
Another one of my most viewed videos form the vaults. I really hope you guys enjoy it, would love some feedback!
#photoshop #photoshoptutorials #photography #space #milkyway #milkywayphotography
Hi Kenneth! Great tutorial. thanks! could you highlight on what settings can come handy while exporting images without loosing lot of work in these images. I am able to follow your tutorial here and there but I struggle to keep the sharpness and quality after I export to my laptop (jpg)..Cheers!!
***** Shoot RAW!
*****
export as a tiff and work in Photoshop as a tiff, use Photoshops save for web setting to convert to a JPEG then you can choose the compression settings :)
+Kenneth Brandon - Dark Sky Chaser How much a computerized pan/tilt telescope mount costs? Is it affordable by any means, or I have to sell a kidney? :) I intend to shoot the Milky Way using also a cropped DSLR (D3100), but I'm afraid of star trail at such a long exposure time
I think you can get one for like 400$, maybe a Vixen polarie star tracker or something like that
This was an awesome tutorial, thank you so much! BTW if no one has mentioned it in the comments already, you can alt+click on the mask button to automatically create a black mask instead of using the paint bucket.
Very nice indeed - and a good tutorial for layer masks for those who haven't encountered those before. I also learned quite a bit about Camera Raw, which I had not played with yet. The only thing on which I would ask for more information in your process is noise correction.
Thanks Kenneth. I have found your videos very helpful, editing the night sky sure takes some practice!
excellent tutorial all round, very well presented..
have shot some great images of the milkyway but nothing compared to these as of yet, still figuring it out on my new d800 and locations have been a little too bright so far but wow, this is where I will come when I get something suitable to edit
Thank you very much for a great tutorial! Brilliant stuff! Looking forward to more. :)
Awesome tutorial! Easy to understand and follow. I can't wait to get home and try it! Thank you
This is fantastic mate! I used Lr to edit my Milky Way shots for the last couple of years but now im happy to try out something new in Ps. Thanks for that great tutorial!
thanks for this video Kenneth you really made this simple to understand
Love your tutorial, has really improved my milky way images. Going to try your time lapse tutorial next! Thanks for posting.
I'm fairly advanced with photography and processing but not so much with this type work. Love this video. Awesome. Just got an epic set last night in Cape Cod Mass over a lighthouse on a dark night like I've never seen. I'll share it when done. Awesome man!!
Hey Kenneth, Really great video! Appreciate you taking the time to make this video after putting a years worth of time into gaining the knowledge! I can't wait to see Mono Lake and Convict Lake myself. Hope you got out this July and took some great pics! Best, Adam
Thank you Kenneth. I really learned a lot from your tutorial.
Great video. Thanks for all the details. Now, I just have to see if there is a way I can snap something even close to this photo without having a computerized mount...
This was very Informative! Your videos are visually stunning!
To get the Milky Way you need as much light as possible. You're usually limited to between 15-30 second exposures depending on your camera and lens. Any longer and the stars will streak. Even when I'm tracking, I'm limited to about 45 seconds because I start getting star trails in the corners of the image.
So to get as much light as possible with these constraints you usually want to shoot wide open and at a very high ISO.
Its awesome that you use a camera that matches theb specs that 85-90% dslr owners have. It shows that you can still take amazing images without dropping 6k on a camera body
Kenneth, I got some good tips from you in this vid. Unfortunately, when I actually needed it, I couldn't find it, but enough stuck that I was able to process something nice. I'm looking forward to following your method a bit more closely.
excellent, breath new life into my old milky way raw files!
I learnt a lot from this and it helped me get something extra out of some images I'd been waiting to edit but wasnt sure how to get the most out of. Thank you :)
Kenneth,
Outstanding tutorial! Very well down. This is exactly what I needed to see. I appreciate your slow and concise presentation. I look forward to your future tutorials.
An absolutely excellent tutorial.
This is awesome mate. Just learnt so much about PS!! Thank you very much !
Oh my god Kenneth. I watched a ton of RedKB as a kid for your puzzle videos. Now I stumble across this channel... damn. I just recently got into photography as well.
The color is determined by your white balance settings. Try setting the white balance to fluorescent light.
This video is excellent. Thank you for such an in-depth and easy to follow tutorial!! I've typically edited my night shots in Adobe Lightroom rather than PS simply because PS seems too complex. But I will give it a go and hopefully get good results thanks to your guidance!
Thanks a lot for making this video!! Keep rocking it dude! (Oh and that picture is awesome!!!!)
Thinks its amazing what you share with us in this tutorial.
Thank you for an excellent tutorial - I am off to take my first Milky Way photos in a hour and will refer to this when i edit my shots tomorrow! :)
Great tutorial Kenneth. Thanks!!!
I used Magic Lantern to get an on board intervelometer in the t3i. To find focus I just know where it is. :) You can put it in live view and try to find a bright star at 10x magnification.
1600 works pretty good with the Canon t3i. Any higher and it starts looking bad. It really helped to have the camera on the tracking mount. it let me keep the iso only at 1600. Otherwise I'd need it at least at 3200.
Wow, followed you along on my milky way but not as super as yours, great tutorial
Well done Ken. I'm more familiar with Lightroom so I'll have to go back and watch this several times to get all the layers/masks right.
Wow what a different beetween the pics, good job
Thanks, helped out a lot! Can't wait to try it out tonight.
It´s amazing...simple, easy...and perfect results!! Thank you sooo much!!
Very helpful Kenneth...Thank you
This is extraordinarily helpful. Thank you!
Crazy tutorial ... you're freakin awesome, you're my god!!!
Thanks exactly the kind of tutorial I was looking for !