Photographing stars

[itsjamie17]

Hi, I took some pictures of the night sky last night and I could clearly see the stars on my xa3's screen but when I transfered the photos to my phone via the camera remote app, I can't really see them anymore. Same thing happened when I copied the photos from my sd card to my computer. How can I solve this problem? Thanks in advance.

[Denali3times]

Hi, first is your screen is adjusted to get preview of white balance and exposure? If so and you see the stars, you're supposed to see them after transfer too. Second try to bracket your exposure, taking 5 shots at -2, -1, 0, +1, +2. It will show you the best exposure to look for in your next shooting sessions.

[itsjamie17]

Hi, first is your screen is adjusted to get preview of white balance and exposure? If so and you see the stars, you're supposed to see them after transfer too. Second try to bracket your exposure, taking 5 shots at -2, -1, 0, +1, +2. It will show you the best exposure to look for in your next shooting sessions.

 

I'm not sure about the screen preview adjustment. It's probably still in its default settings as I haven't changed anything yet. Will try exposure bracketing on my next shoot. Hopefully what I see on the screen will be the same as when I transfer the photo on my pc. Thing is though, I only see the stars on the pc when it's zoomed in. Do you think I could maybe just resize the pic or is there any way that I can zoom out the original pic? Thanks!

[Chucktin]

Are you using jpegs?

Jpegs "simplify" shadows (can you say night sky?) then highlights for the sake of compression.

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[itsjamie17]

Are you using jpegs?

Jpegs "simplify" shadows (can you say night sky?) then highlights for the sake of compression.

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

I think yeah. How can I avoid this from happening again? The settings for my picture is in either Fine or Normal but definitely not Raw. Should I just use Fine+Raw or Normal+Raw instead? Tried adjusting the highlights and shadows but the stars still won't show

[Woodworth]

What exposure/ISO settings did you use? Generally something like 20s, wide open at ISO1600 should give you something usable.

[itsjamie17]

What exposure/ISO settings did you use? Generally something like 20s, wide open at ISO1600 should give you something usable.

 

I don't recall exactly but it's either 15 or 20 secs and the ISO at 1250-3500 I think. Tried a bunch of combos and checked which one looked better on the screen

[Chucktin]

I think yeah. How can I avoid this from happening again? The settings for my picture is in either Fine or Normal but definitely not Raw. Should I just use Fine+Raw or Normal+Raw instead? Tried adjusting the highlights and shadows but the stars still won't show

I shoot RAW + Jpegs but only cause wifie hates to process Raw files. Sorry to tell you but I'm betting you have to shoot Raw files plus process the sky as an extra step to bring out stars.

I'd import into PS thru Bridge 2 copies of the same image. Copy 1 I'd adust in Raw for the foreground exposure (that washes out the sky), copy 2 I'd adjust in Raw to bring out the stars.

Then I'd sandwich the 2 with the sky over the foreground, _dupe_ both layers, add another (layer 5) foreground, fill bottom layer with white _only_, this will layer is handy for cropping.

Now you got bottom to top, white canvas, foreground (hide this), Sky (hide also), foreground 2, Sky 2.

Now hide the sky and work on Forgound - color, brightness, etc. DO NOT correct size or perspectives yet! Switch to Sky, color, brightness, etc.

Switch back to foreground, hide sky. Select the elements you like, own tool or lasso, etc. Invert the selection and delete. DO NOT Deselect yet. Switch to Sky, invert and delete. Save that selection just in case. Save as PSD at this point.

 

Now if you're happy you can merge to processed foreground + sky and correct the size and perspective. The white canvas may show thru to enhance the stars but I've found it useful at the perspective correction above.

Happy again? You did work on copies, not originals, didn't you? Flatten, sharpen for print or view, save as Tiff, save as JPEG. Done.

That's a work flow I adopted, painfully, YMMV of course. Happy Phtoshopping.

Cvt

 

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