Astro Landscape Photography

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Andrew Astbury

One of my patrons, Paul Smith, and I ventured down to Shropshire and the spectacular quartsite ridge of The Stiperstones to get this image of the Milky Way and Mars (the large bright ‘star’ above the rocks on the left).

I always work the same way for astro landscape photography, beginning with getting into position just before sunset.

Using the PhotoPills app on my phone I can see where the milky way will be positioned in my field of view at the time of peak sky darkness. This enables me to position the camera exactly where I want it for the best composition.

The biggest killer in astro landscape photography is excessive noise in the foreground.

The other problem is that foregrounds in most images of this genre are not sharp due to a lack of depth of field at the wide apertures you need to shoot the night sky at – f2.8 for example.

To get around this problem we need to shoot a separate foreground image at a lower ISO, a narrower aperture and focused closer to the camera.

Some photographers change focus, engage long exposure noise reduction and then shoot a very long exposure. But that’s an eminently risky thing to do in my opinion, both from a technical standpoint and one of time – a 60 minute exposure will take 120 minutes to complete.

The length of exposure is chosen to allow the very low photon-count from the foreground to ‘build-up’ on the sensor and produced a usable level of exposure from what little natural light is around.

From a visual perspective, when it works, the method produces images that can be spectacular because the light in the foreground matches the light in the sky in terms of directionality.

Light Painting

To get around the inconvenience of time and super-long exposures a lot of folk employ the technique of light painting their foregrounds.

Light painting – in my opinion – destroys the integrity of the finished image because it’s so bloody obvious! The direction of light that’s ‘painted’ on the foreground bares no resemblance to that of the sky.

The other problem with light painting is this – those that employ the technique hardly ever CHECK to see if they are in the field of view of another photographer – think about that one for a second or two!

My Method

As I mentioned before, I set up just before sunset. In the shot above I knew the milky way and Mars were not going to be where I wanted them until just after 1am, but I was set up by 9.20pm – yep, a long wait ahead, but always worth the effort.

Astro Landscape Photography

As we move towards the latter half of civil twilight I start shooting my foreground exposure, and I’ll shoot a few of these at regular intervals between then and mid nautical twilight.

Because I shoot raw the white balance set in camera is irrelevant, and can be balanced with that of the sky in Photoshop during post processing.

The key things here are that I have a shadowless even illumination of my foreground which is shot at a low ISO, in perfect focus, and shot at say f8 has great depth of field.

Once deep into blue hour and astronomical twilight the brighter stars are visible and so I now use full magnification in live view and focus on a bright star in the cameras field of view.

Then it’s a waiting game – waiting for the sky to darken to its maximum and the Milky Way to come into my desired position for my chosen composition.

Shooting the Sky

Astro landscape photography is all about showing the sky in context with the foreground – I have absolutely ZERO time for those popular YouTube photographers who composite a shot of the night sky into a landscape image shot in a different place or a different angle.

Good astro landscape photography HAS TO BE A COMPOSITE though – there is no way around that.

And by GOOD I mean producing a full resolution image that will sell through the agencies and print BIG if needed.

The key things that contribute to an image being classed good in my book are simple:

Pin-point stars with no trailing
Low noise
Sharp from ‘back’ to ‘front’.

Pin-points stars are solely down to correct shutter speed for your sensor size and megapixel count.

Low noise is covered by shooting a low ISO foreground and a sequence of high ISO sky images, and using Starry Landscape Stacker on Mac (Sequator on PC appears to be very similar) in conjunction with a mean or median stacking mode.

Further noise cancelling is achieved but the shooting of Dark Frames, and the typical wide-aperture vignetting is cancelled out by the creation of a flat field frame.

And ‘back to front’ image sharpness should be obvious to you from what I’ve already written!

So, I’ll typically shoot a sequence of 20 to 30 exposures – all one after the other with no breaks or pauses – and then a sequence of 20 to 30 dark frames.

Shutter speeds usually range from 4 to 6 seconds

Watch this video on my YouTube Channel about shutter speed:

Best viewed on the channel itself, and click the little cog icon to choose 1080pHD as the resolution.

Putting it all Together

Shooting all the frames for astro landscape photography is really quite simple.

Putting it all together is fairly simple and straight forward too – but it’s TEDIOUS and time-consuming if you want to do it properly.

The shot above took my a little over 4 hours!

And 80% of it is retouching in Photoshop.

I produce a very extensive training title – Complete Milky Way Photography Workflow – with teaches you EVERYTHING you need to know about the shooting and processing of astro landscape photography images – you can purchase it here – and if you use the offer code MWAY15 at the checkout you’ll get £15 off the purchase price.

But I wanted to try Raw Therapee for this Stiperstones image, and another of my patrons – Frank – wanted a video of processing methodology in Raw Therapee.

Easier said than done, cramming 4 hours into a typical YouTube video! But after about six attempts I think I’ve managed it, and you can see it here, but I warn you now that it’s 40 minutes long:

Best viewed on the channel itself, and click the little cog icon to choose 1080pHD as the resolution.

I hope you’ve found the information in this post useful, together with the YouTube videos.

I don’t monetize my YouTube videos or fill my blog posts with masses of affiliate links, and I rely solely on my patrons to help cover my time and server costs. If you would like to help me to produce more content please visit my Patreon page on the button above.

Many thanks and best light to you all.

The Importance of Finished Image Previsualization

Posted on November 27, 2017 by Andrew Astbury

The Importance of Finished Image Previsualization (Patreon Only).

For those of you who haven’t yet subscribed to my YouTube channel, I uploaded a video describing how I shot and processed the Lone Tree at Llyn Padarn in North Wales the other day.

You can view the video here:

Image previsualization is hugely important in all photography, but especially so in landscape photography.

Most of us do it in some way or other. Looking at images of a location by other photographers is the commonest form of image previsualization that I come across amongst most hobby photographers – and up to a point, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong in that – as long as you put your own ‘slant’ on the shot.

But relying on this method alone has one massive Achilles Heel – nature does not always ‘play nice’ with the light!

You set off for your chosen location with a certain knowledge that the weather forecast is correct, and you are guaranteed to get the perfect light for the shot you have in mind.

Three hours later, you arrive at your destination, and the first thought that enters your head is “how do I blow up the Met Office” – how could they have lied to me so badly?

If you rely solely on ‘other folks images’ for what your shot should look like, then you now have a severe problem. Nature is railing against your preconceptions, and unless you make some mental modifications then you are deep into a punch-up with nature that you will never win.

Just such an occasion transpired for me the other day at Llyn Padarn in North Wales.

The forecast was for low level cloud with no wind, just perfect for a moody shot of the famous Lone Tree on the south shore of the lake.

So, arriving at the location to be greeted by this was a surprise to say the least:

image previsualization

This would have been disastrous for some, simply because the light does not comply with their initial expectations. I’ve seen many people get a ‘fit of the sulks’ when this happens, and they abandon the location without even getting out of the car.

Alternatively, there are folk who will get their gear set up and make an attempt, but their initial disappointment becomes a festering ‘mental block’, and they cannot see a way to turn this bad situation into something good.

But, here’s the thing – there is no such thing as a bad situation!

There are however, multiple BAD REACTIONS to a situation.

And every adverse reaction has its roots buried in either:

Rigid, inflexible preconceptions.
Poor understanding of photographic equipment and post-processing.

Or both!

On this occasion, I was expecting a rather heavy, flat-ish light scenario; but was greeted by the exact opposite.

But instead of getting ‘stroppy about it’, experience and knowledge allow me to change my expectation, and come up with a new ‘finished image previsualization’ on the fly so to speak.

image previsualization

Instead of the futility of trying to produce my original idea – which would never work out – I simply change my image previsualization, based on what’s in front of me.

It’s then up to me to identify what I need to do in order to bring this new idea to fruition.

The capture workflow for both ‘anticipated’ and ‘reality’ would involve bracketing due to excessive subject brightness range, but there the similarity ends.

The ‘anticipated’ capture workflow would only require perhaps 3 or 4 shots – one for the highlights, and the rest for the mid tones and shadow detail.

But the ‘reality’ capture workflow is very different. The scene has massive contrast and the image looks like crap BECAUSE of that excessive contrast. Exposing for the brightest highlights gives us a very dark image:

image previsualization

But I know that the contrast can be reduced in post to give me this:

image previsualization

So, while I’m shooting I can previz in my head what the image I’ve shot will look like in post.

This then allows me to capture the basic bracket of shots to capture all my shadow and mid tone detail.

If you watch the video, you’ll see that I only use TWO shots from the bracket sequence to produce the basic exposure blend – and they are basically 5 stops apart. The other shots I use are just for patching blown highlights.

Because the clouds are moving, the sun is in and out like a yo-yo. Obviously, when it’s fully uncovered, it will flare across the lens. But when it is partially to fully covered, I’m doing shot after shot to try and get the best exposures of the reflected highlights in the water.

By shooting through a polarizer AND a 6 stop ND, I’m getting relatively smooth water in all these shots – with the added bonus of blurring out the damn canoeists!

And it’s the ‘washed out colour, low contrast previsualization’ of the finished image that is driving me to take all the shots – I’m gathering enough pixel data to enable me to create the finished image without too much effort in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Anyway, go and watch the video as it will give you a much better idea of what I’m talking about!

But remember, always take your time and try reappraise what’s in front of you when the lighting conditions differ from what you were expecting. You will often be amazed at the awesome images you can ‘pull’ from what ostensibly appears to be a right-off situation.

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Photoshop Colour Range Selection Tool

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Andrew Astbury

Photoshop Basics: Colour Range Tool

The Photoshop Colour Range Selection Tool used to isolate part of an image based on colour.

I’ve just uploaded a new video to my YouTube channel:

Click this link if you are viewing this post in your email

OK, so I’ve made a tentative start on my new Photoshop video tutorials and I thought I’d upload this Colour Range Selection Tool Basics one to my Tube of Me channel – just so that everyone can see what the Fuzziness, Localised Colour Clusters and Range “do-hickies” actually do for your workflow process!

The colour range selection tool can be used for many different purposes within Photoshop where you want to make a selection based on Colour/Hue as opposed to a selection based on luminosity.

In this video I use it to effect a colour change to a specific object within an image; but in the previous video post I used it to ‘remove’ a black background.

But both cases amount to the same thing if you think about it logically – it’s just a way of ISOLATING pixels in an image based on their colour range.

Overall, this is a bit of a “quick ‘n dirty” way of doing the job, and I could do a little extra brush work inside the mask to tidy things up that little bit more!

But now you know how the tool itself works.

A purer way of changing localised colour involves a very different method – see these other videos on my channel:

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Simple Masking in Photoshop

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Andrew Astbury

Simple Masking in Photoshop – The Liquid Chocolate Shots

Masking in Photoshop is what the software was built for, and yet so many Photoshop users are unfamiliar or just downright confused by the concept that they never use the technique.

Mask mastery will transform the way you work with Photoshop!

Take these shots for instance:

Milk and Liquid Chocolate Splash

Liquid Milk and White Chocolate splash together in an abstract isolated on white background

Wanting a shot to look like liquid chocolate and cream on a black or white background is all well and good, but producing it can be either as simple or hard as you care to make it.

Trying to get a pure white background ‘in camera’ is problematic to say the least, and chucking hot melted chocolate around if fraught with its own set of problems!

Shooting on a dark or black background is easier because it demands LESS lighting.

Masking in Photoshop will allow us to isolate the subject and switch out the background.

Now for the ‘chocolate bit’ – we could substitute it with brown emulsion paint – but have you seen the bloody price of it?!

Cheap trade white emulsion comes by the gallon at less than the price of a litre of the right coloured paint; and masking in Photoshop + a flat colour layer with a clipping mask put in the right blend mode will turn white paint into liquid chocolate every time!

A tweak with the Greg Benz Lumenzia plugin will finish the shot in Photoshop:

SSChoc A final tweak in Lightroom and the whole process takes from the RAW shot on the left to the finished image on the right.

The key to a good mask in Photoshop is ALWAYS good, accurate pixel selection, and you’d be surprised just how simple it is.

Watch the video on my YouTube channel; I use the Colour Range tool to make a simple selection of the background, and a quick adjustment of the mask edge Smart Radius and Edge Contrast in order to obtain the perfect Photoshop mask for the job:

Like everything else in digital photography, when you know what you can do in post processing, it changes the way you shoot – hence I know I can make the shot with white paint on a black background!

Useful Links:

Greg B’s Lumenzia Plugin for Photoshop – get it HERE – you can’t afford NOT to have it in your arsenal of Photoshop tools.

UPDATE June 2018: Greg Benz (the plugin author) has launched a comprehensive Lumenzia training course – see my post here for more information.

Masking in Photoshop – you mustn’t let the concept frighten or intimidate you! It’s critical that you understand it if you want to get the very best from your images; and it’s a vast subject simply because there are many types of mask, and even more ways by which to go about producing them.

It’s a topic that no one ever stops learning about – nope, not even yours truly! But in order to explore it to the full you need to understand all the basic concepts AND how to cut through all the bullshit that pervades the internet about it – stick with me on this folks and hang on for the ride!

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Lightroom Dehaze – part 2

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Andrew Astbury

More Thoughts on The Lightroom Dehaze Control

With the dehaze adjustment in Lightroom (right) the sky and distant hills look good, but the foreground looks poor.

In my previous post I did say I’d be uploading another video reflecting my thoughts on the Lightroom/ACR dehaze adjustment.

And I’ve just done that – AND I’ve made a concious effort to keep the ramblings down too..!

In the video I look at the effects of the dehaze adjustment on 4 very different images, and alternative ways of obtaining similar or better results without it.

You may see some ‘banding’ on the third image I work on – this is down to YouTube video compression.

In conclusion I have to say that I find the dehaze ‘tool’ something of an anti-climax if I’m honest. In fairly small positive amounts it can work exceptionally well in terms of a quick work flow on relatively short dynamic range images. But I’m not a really big fan in general, and It’s possible to create pretty much the same adjustments using the existing Lightroom tools.

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Lightroom Dehaze

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Andrew Astbury

The Lightroom Dehaze Control

I’m getting a bit fed up with seeing countless folk raving about this new dehaze slider control in Lightroom, ACR etc.

dehaze,lightroom,Andy Astbury,WildlifeinPixels

The control itself can be found at the bottom of the Effects panel in the Develop module in Lightroom CC 2015, and at the top of the ACR FX tab.

Yes it’s certainly useful, but I have yet to see anyone illustrating its bad points – so Uncle Andy has made a video: if you are reading this in email, click this link to watch the video https://www.wildlifeinpixels.net/blog/lightroom-dehaze/

I do tend to waffle a bit in videos so apologies for that…!

You might want to click the YouTube icon bottom right corner and watch this video at a larger size.

I’m not saying that the dehaze control in Lightroom and ACR is crap – far from it. But I am strongly advising that you deploy it with some caution, especially when images contain small fine edge detail.

Under these circumstances, positive value dehaze control adjustments can have disastrous effects on fine detail. You might not be aware of these ‘on screen’ but send the image to A2 print and you could be in for some tears.

I’ll be doing another video on the dehaze control shortly, showing some of the positives that I see in it.

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Image Retouching

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Andrew Astbury

Image Retouching in Photoshop CC 2014

It’s very rare that we ever get a frame from our camera that doesn’t need retouching – that’s a FACT.

Imperfections in the frame can be both ‘behind the shutter’ and ‘in front of the lens’ – sensor dust and crud on the subject. But you’ll take photographs where these imperfections are hard, if not impossible, to see under normal viewing.

But print that image BIG and those invisible faults will begin to be visually apparent; by which time it’s too bloomin’ late and they’ve cost you money; or worse still, a client.

The ‘visualise spots’ tool in Lightroom will show you a certain amount of ‘dust bunny’ type faults and errors, but the way Lightroom executes retouching repairs is not always ‘quite up to snuff’; and when it comes to dust, crap and other undesirables on the subject itself Lightroom will fail to recognise them in the first place.

Image retouching isn’t really all that difficult; but it can be an intensely tedious and time-consuming process.

To that end I’ve stuck these HD video lessons on my You Tube channel.

In these videos I illustrate how I deploy the Spot Healing brush, Healing Brush, Clone Tool, Patch Tool and Content Aware Fill command to carry out some basic image retouching on a shot of cutlery bright ware.

I demonstrate the addition of a ‘dust visibility’ curves adjustment layer – something that everyone should ‘get the hang’ of using – as a first step to effective image retouching.

When photographing glossy, high reflectivity subjects we need to remove the imperfections and smooth the surfaces of the subject without reducing the ‘glossiness’ and turning it matt!

Please note: a couple of these videos are in excess of 20 minutes duration and they will look better at full resolution HDV if you click the You Tube icon. Also, it takes a lot longer to do a job when you have to talk about at the same time!

I hope you get some idea as to how simple and straightforward my approach to image retouching is!

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