How does Aurora HDR do with a starry night time sky?

I had simply sat down to start processing a picture of a starry sky and a faint Milky Method. I questioned, “How would Aurora HDR work on this?” In spite of everything, I hadn’t actually heard of anybody utilizing HDR for Milky Method pictures earlier than.

What would occur if I used it for one thing apart from the extra typical dealing with of excessive dynamic vary wants? Let’s take a look at the way it fared with this single picture.

Opening up the starry night time sky with Aurora HDR

I opened the picture in Photoshop and launched Aurora HDR as a plugin as proven above. I photographed one other body with the precise scene for the grassy space and bushes in order that it might have much less noise. I’ll layer that in later.

This can be a photograph for the starry sky solely. You may see that there’s a faint define of a Milky Method, partially blotted out by a 30% moon to the again of me.

Processing the starry night time sky in Aurora HDR

As you’ll be able to see above, with out doing very a lot, Aurora HDR has already introduced out the starry sky extra. Once more, we’re largely specializing in the starry sky right here, as I’ve a decrease ISO photograph of the grass and bushes so there may be much less noise that I’ll add later.

Right here, as a substitute of utilizing one of many presets, I merely tweaked a couple of of the sliders on the suitable, together with HDR Readability and HDR Good Construction. Even with the moon out, it’s good to see somewhat of the Milky Method peaking out.

Again to Photoshop

I favor to work in Photoshop as a result of I like the flexibleness of working with layers non-destructively. As you’ll be able to see above, I’ve created one other layer for entitled, appropriately, “Aurora HDR.” Up till now, this has been a single, flat picture. That may change.

Decreasing the noise of the foreground

Previous to photographing the starry sky, I had photographed a low noise foreground picture for 90 seconds at f/2.8 and ISO 400 with a Pentax K-1 camera and Pentax 15-30mm f/2.8 lens. I “swept” the grassy space and the big tree with a heat mild from a handheld ProtoMachines LED2 mild portray system to deliver out somewhat extra of the feel.

Then I blended the low ISO foreground photograph with the photograph of the starry sky I had simply processed with Aurora HDR and diminished the blue shade of the sky a bit. You may see how this appears above.

The place did the capturing star come from?

I ought to clarify one different factor. There’s a capturing star! That wasn’t there earlier than … how did it get there?

Once I {photograph} the starry night time sky, I incessantly take 20 pictures in succession. Then to scale back digicam noise, I stack them in Starry Panorama Stacker. In one among these pictures, there was a capturing star. I used to be enthusiastic about this uncommon seize!

However after I utilized the stacking course of, it disappeared. That is regular. Because it solely appeared in a single body, Starry Panorama Stacker determined, “This isn’t a star. I shall remove it.” It additionally eliminates airplane trails, so this sometimes is a bonus.

However after all, I needed the capturing star! I took the person capturing star photograph and thoroughly, rigorously blended it again in its authentic place. Why not?

Again to Aurora HDR

As you’ll be able to see, with minimal effort, Aurora HDR was in a position to deliver out the main points of the starry night time sky.