Astrophotography: Star control using Star Masks

[@Amuppet]

I love listening to you, very useful and educative

[@namregd]

Well thank you Dennis 😊

[@dustinturner1757]

Very nice video. Thanks for not being one of those guys that says "open this dialogue box and play with this value until it doesn't look crappy...".

[@namregd]

Ha! Thanks for that. Yeah, I tried wherever possible to explain things as clearly as possible. Seemed to do the trick 😊

[@boodlewoodle]

Great tut also found it useful to brighten up the stars using the layer buy erasing a few of the brighter stars on the mask to bring some stars back again adds a nice boost to sections of star clusters.

[@MattSchulze]

Too bad you stopped doing these tutorials, they are some of the most useful around.

[@namregd]

Matt Schulze Hi Matt. Thanks for that 😊 I do get lots of positive feedback on my vids, which is very kind, but in the immortal words of Paul Young (when he could sing), Everything Must Change 😊 I'm retired now and living in Spain. Whether that's permanent remains to be seen. I haven't done any astro for approaching two years, and I have to say I'm not really missing it. But I have time on my hands now, so never say never 😊

[@MattSchulze]

Enjoy your retirement, Doug, just don't forget to look up every once in while.

[@Rhwbanz]

Superb tutorial Doug, really interesting to see what process you use to get the images, thanks for sharing.

[@tromboneboy981]

Brilliant, and to the point. I can't wait to try this out.

[@namregd]

Thanks :) Good luck!

[@alpal2002]

Very useful thanks. Can't wait for the next video which will show how to get rid of the stars, process the pic then put the stars back. I have discovered a method to put stars from a shorter exposure stack which still have colours - & add them into an image with longer exposures to get rid of blown out stars that have no colour.

[@namregd]

No probs - pleased you found it useful :)

[@TheBarefootpete]

Mahalo from Hawaii Doug, It worked pretty good for my M16, Veil nebula and ngc 7000. Subscribed!

[@namregd]

Good stuff - glad it helped :) Hawaii eh? I'm not even a little bit jealous :)

[@namregd]

Hi @Rhwbanz. Don't think I responded to this, which is unforgivable. My apologies, and thanks for the kind comment :)

[@alpal2002]

Thanks ever so much - that was simple & so useful. That will help me considerably with my processing.

[@tempesfugit2147]

This technique seems to work only if you do the stretch directly on the layer that contains the image and the star mask. It does not work if you use adjustment layers to modify the image layer that contains the star mask.

[@danielbeetsma6118]

Thats a good observation and an answer why I couldnt seem to apply curves to the background. Doug, we love you - this collection of tutorials is extremely good, as I have often said before ;-) I just never got around to starmasks - too lazy. But wow, what a difference!

[@Bills_APCh]

I think you can specify the adjustment layer is clipped to the layer below (the star mask layer), it should work I think - at least in Photoshop CC

[@MrRobbgobblin]

thank you so much for this! your vids are truly helpful and very valuable.

[@namregd]

Thanks for that :)

[@namregd]

No probs - hope it helps :)

[@namregd]

Hi Mark :) Thanks for that. Yep, the possibilities with layer masks is almost endless :)

[@FredOzzie]

Thanks for the tutorial. I used your technique to reshape slightly-streaked stars on a photo of M42 in Orion taken with my iPhone in an afocal connection to my telescope. I described this on the Cloudy Nights forum at www.cloudynights.com/topic/549926-smartphone-astrophotography/page-63#entry10901283. One suggestion -- when resizing your image, instead of memorizing the pixel value and then multiplying by four it is easier to change the size to percent and set it to 400. Then to restore the size, set it to 25 percent.

[@vikrantvsoni]

When i goes to select with Ctrl I then it inverted and i cant copy in to mask....it create new layer with inverted image..

[@namregd]

Ctrl I is to invert. Copy is Ctrl C 😊

[@vikrantvsoni]

@@namregd I know my dear Doug...but check what you spoke at 5.00 time....ctrl I and then ctrl C....and you copy into mask....but it cant copy in my case....

[@namregd]

😊 It says, having created the mask, to go back to the image by clicking on it, then Ctrl I to invert it, Ctrl A to select it then Ctrl C to copy it. Then Alt click to return to the mask (or just click on it) and Ctrl C to copy. The instructions are correct Vikrant, and will work in photoshop. 😁

[@vikrantvsoni]

@@namregd Ok....Thank you i will try.....