Mineral Moon in Photoshop | Astrophotography for Beginners

I teach beginners how to turn a basic image of the Moon into a colorful one to reveal the beautiful minerals with Photoshop!
Ways to support the channel:
/ sarahmathsastro
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Equipment (affiliate links - thank you for your support!!):
DSLR: amzn.to/3MBkBZ9
Camera Lens 1: amzn.to/3XlfwJk
Mirrorless Camera (close option): amzn.to/4egaLaZ
Telescope: bit.ly/3qk8urF (Agena) | bit.ly/3ZgODZZ (HPS)
#astrophotography #astronomy #moon #lunar #moonphotography #lunarphotography #beginners #spacephotography #dslr #siril #photoshop
Affiliate Links:
I am an affiliate partner with Agena Astro, High Point Scientific, and Amazon. Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means at no extra cost to you, I will make a small commission if you use them to make a qualifying purchase. This supports the channel so I can continue creating videos. Thank you for your support!

[@adampowell8804]

Okay, this channel is amazing. So happy I discovered it. Thanks Sarah!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

You're very kind, thanks, Adam!

[@adampowell8804]

@@SarahMathsAstro No problem. I hope your channel explodes. You put a lot of time and effort into your videos, it is evident and it deserves to be recognized.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

That means a ton, thank you! I just hope they’re helpful!

[@aarronforeman7290]

I've been sitting on a bunch of photos of the moon I took last year - this is great content for me to dig them back up!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Awesome! Would love to see them :D

[@huf67]

I actually have snacks while watching this....I feel the gods are shining down on me !!!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

All is right in the omniverse 💫

[@DamienAirScapePhotos]

This is by far my favourite video to follow for a mineral moon! So good 👌

[@SarahMathsAstro]

That's so great to hear! I'm honored, thank you!!

[@TheNarrowbandChannel]

Lot of great info Sarah in one video.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thanks so much, Ben!

[@keithhanssen7413]

Nothing beats a good moonie 😊

[@SarahMathsAstro]

I very much agree! ☺️

[@RaysAstrophotography]

Nice work Sarah Matthews!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you, Ray!

[@johnnybueti]

Perfect timing!! The full Moon is just in 7 days. Great as always, thanks Sarah!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Yes!! Can’t wait :) hope you get some great imaging in!

[@wavemaker54]

That was fun and entertaining as well as helpful, thanks!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Happy to hear it! Thank you!

[@thefailedastronomer7407]

Great video Sarah. This makes me want to image the moon again. It's been years since I imaged it. I never knew of this technique. Thanks for the enlightenment. I may try this if I can get some favorable skies soon. Again great job.👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you! I hope you have favorable conditions soon :)

[@SDNoel73]

Awesome tutorial, as always!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thanks so much!

[@janzelm505]

Very useful video!, good timing too as a full moon is approaching!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Glad to hear it! And yes, mineral moon processing is always a fun project with a full moon!

[@brucecenterwall1270]

You did a great job..... as usual 😊

[@SarahMathsAstro]

You rock, Bruce! Thank you!

[@david_davinci]

I think I may have learned a thing or two :) now I might just go back and reprocess some of my moon shots. Thanks!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

So happy to hear it :)

[@Byaltair]

Hi Sarah, what an awesome video! Thank you for explaining what's what, a lot of KZbinrs skip on small things but then keep talking about something else over and over. Your video, straight to the point, succinct and easy to follow. Do you reckon a video on editing tracked Milky Way or pano of the MW arch and then how to get the most colours, data, etc possible? Thanks again!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Hi there, thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to watch the video and for your great feedback! I have a Milky Way tutorial that I've been working on but not sure when it will be released/ finished. What software would you like to see used?

[@Byaltair]

@@SarahMathsAstro Thank you for replying. I use LR & PS with Astro Panel X Pro plugin & MS ICE for pano creation. And use Nikon Z6 Full spectrum Modified with tracker to capture here in Central Australia. Thank you, Altair

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thanks for the response! That’s helpful for planning the upcoming video, thanks so much!

[@astric.celestiustolls]

I am looking to do this eventually, so thank you for this video! By the way, I love the Voyager Golden Record, my wife and I have that on display in our living room!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

That’s awesome on all accounts!!

[@emmaarcher]

hi sarah great to see you making another video for youtube

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you, Emma!

[@himaniparmar120]

Great Thanks for the video this helped a lot!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Awesome, happy to hear it!

[@DSOImager]

I love mineral Moon shots.. although most push the saturation too much. Yours looks excellent.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you! :)

[@Aztronoob]

Haha, tortilla moon! LOVE it.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thanks, Tom :D

[@PatrickManley]

Despite forgetting the snacks...😢. I had a great time Integrating your video into the workflow I created this past weekend for myself. 🔭

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Well… all things considered (no snacks), I’m glad it worked out :D

[@PatrickManley]

@@SarahMathsAstro thanks for pushing me to play around with Smart Objects. I need to do more here to play. But I like playing with those...thanks!

[@richardmattas4003]

well done young lady...you have good taste in imaging, and good communication skills. new sub!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your kind words and support!

[@richardmattas4003]

@@SarahMathsAstro you're welcome...can't wait to explore your videos. clear skies my friend!

[@philipandrews5738]

Hey instead of opening as cop, select open as object. That’ll allow you to make changes to the adjustments you made in camera raw later on.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thanks for the recommendation!

[@CptMoonyMoon]

Yay new video =D

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Yay! :D

[@jamesmarco9384]

Great video

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you, James!

[@ahmedwaddah9391]

I am hoping to do a new mineral full moon soon.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Would love to see it when you’re finished.

[@paulwood6729]

Really interesting video 👍One small point, you don't change a Raw image when editing, Photoshop creates a separate file containing the editing data.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you, Paul!!

[@Alphamax-rt5if]

Tank from france.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Ah!

[@TheeManWIthNoLife]

That's really cool!!! But also looks like a lot of work! All I do is CRANK up the saturation, fiddle with the Color Editor section, and then adjust the saturation again until I dig it. I also mess with the shadows, black, highlights and white sliders. Probably a horrible and unsophisticated way of doing it, but I make it work! Finally upgrading to a modern day Newtonian telescope after using an old ass 400mm lens from the 1970's, and your connecting a camera to a telescope video was super helpful! Rest of your channel kicks ass, too! Will definitely stray away from my barbaric ways and try some of these mineral moon techniques out!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Hey! There’s all sorts of ways!! Super interesting to hear what other people do so thanks for sharing :D

[@hotflashfoto]

Fantastic tutorial! I seem to see some CA in your walls. LOL. Do you find that neutral lighting in your room helps when editing, or not?

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you!! I have a fairly budget filming lens so I'm not surprised by the CA. And yes, typically editing in a neutral room helps! Same with a well calibrated monitor :)

[@johnniewelbornjr.8940]

It is always interesting to see how others move about in PS (I love my keyboard shortcuts, for example). This was an interesting approach to enhance mineral colors but this is coming from outside the astrophotography circles (something I intend to begin playing with here in western North Dakota/eastern Montana and perhaps down in Wyoming). I used to use high-pass techniques but prefer going into Topaz for sharpening/noise reduction these days to reduce the workload (do you find uses for such complimentary software?). I've always worked on copies of my .raw files and I suppose my workflow is overkill, for I "save as" .psd/.tif after making a handful of adjustments, resulting is a LOT of files stored in each image's "work edit" folder. Yesss, it IS overkill and it was a bad habit I began probably 20 years ago when I was teaching myself PS 7. In theory, it would enable me to return to a point in the workflow to begin alternate adjustments but in reality, I simply start from scratch aaaanyway, if I do return to an old image. At any rate, thanks for sharing, for I enjoy seeing how others approach post-work. :)

[@SarahMathsAstro]

I agree, it's always interesting to see someone else's workflow and how they move through a software. Regarding sharpening and noise reduction, I've tried Topaz before, it works well. I don't use it too often though and with KZbin workflows, I try to keep the additional cost plug-ins out of the video since PS already costs money. For saving, I do find myself going back and making adjustments to a .psd, so it's been worth keeping that part in my workflows at least, but agree it could very easily get out of hand quickly. Plus, there are instances where I just completly start over, but I guess not as much. Thanks for sharing your experience! Always fascinating to learn from others!

[@pattygq]

Hold space and drag with the mouse for panning. No need to click on dedicated icon.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you for that!

[@pattygq]

@@SarahMathsAstro You're welcome.

[@windupmerchant1679]

Thank you for another great video as always!!! A quick one from a newbie, I'm assuming this can be done on GIMP too, right? I'm about to start watching tutorials on GIMP as Photoshop is a bit pricey for the beginning.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you! And yes, I believe this would work for GIMP too :)

[@windupmerchant1679]

@@SarahMathsAstro Legend! Cheers :)

[@the_best_of_times]

Hi Sarah. Can you do a video on the ACS3? Tough to get on a video?

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Yes!

[@phild2375]

i really enjoyed the video. I used a stacked 32 bit tiff file I created from your other moon video. It was well focused ( I was able to use over 90% of my 200 frames with 95% confidence. My first question is why did you duplicate your stacked 32 bit background image before using levels and converting to 16 bits? This worked well. When trying to get the colors using the +10 for vibrance & saturation, I never did get any colors ( more than 25 layers). The image mainly darkened a bit in some areas and turned yellow. Can you suggest a reason why?

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Hi Phil, that's excellent to hear. To your first question: I duplicated the stacked image twice just purely to protect the original background layer/ image. Many users in PS will do this so as to not unintentionally add an adjustment to the original image/ background layer and then not be able to go back as easily. It's more of an overly protective measure. You could also just turn it into a smart object to achieve the same amount of protection/ ability to easily undo/ change adjustments. I probably didn't need to do this for the 32-bit image anyways since we were going to convert it to a 16-bit, but its more out of habit, which I see can be confusing/ weird. My apologies. To your second question, was it a yellowish/ golden-like color? And were some of the mare regions dark blue? If so, some cameras and lens/telescope combos give you this effect it seems while trying to create a mineral moon, and some like it? Otherwise, if the color was more muted/ grey/ yellow and the darks were almost devoid of color, then it could be a color calibration thing. You may want to try to align the color channels in Levels or Curves or by creating a separate Background image layer and applying "Auto Color' via Image > Auto Color (top menu). If that doesn't look good (i.e., highlights are blown out/ clipped), press command + Z on Mac or Control + Z on Windows to undo. If none of these options help after adding smalls rounds of Vibrance/ Hue & Saturation adjustment layers, then would you be willing to email me a few versions of your image to [e-mail] and I will try to help (I am also in the midst of preparing for an in-person photography workshop next week so if my response is a bit delayed until after November 6, that is why) - image versions: 1) 32-bit image straight from Siril (TIFF) 2) and then the 32-bit file right before you convert to a 16-bit in PS, 3) and then the 16-bit TIFF before you apply anything else to it, 4) and then finally, the final image you've been getting? Thanks, Phil!

[@dougkolb3706]

Amazing work in Lr & Ps but what about those of us who don't shoot in RAW. Retired recently and have a Nikon Z8 with 180-600 and a 2X TC. What white balance K temp would be a good setting for the full moon (super moon) later this week? Now that I'm retired and doing a lot more Landscape, Wildlife and Astro photography I will replacing my old old old PC and getting LrC and Ps.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you and congrats on retiring! May I ask if you would be opposed to shooting in RAW? For white balance, I keep everything at auto or daylight. And then if I need to a just later for whatever reason, I just do it in post because of the RAW data and being able to do that. In any case, I would still should the super moon in auto or daylight still.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

You'll also be able to bring in a .jpeg or anything else into Lr or Ps no problem of course as you know. You could also just got to Filter > Camera Raw from within Ps and open up Camera Raw that way but not ideal in my opinion.

[@dougkolb3706]

@@SarahMathsAstro Thanks for the quick reply. Don't have Lr or Ps but will be adding it when I update this old PC. You're trying to teach an old dog new tricks. LOL. I guess it's better to have the Raw data and it can be used at a later date than shoot in jpeg and not have the data. Again, thanks the useful advice quick reply.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Oh gotcha, sorry, I misunderstood. And hey, we're all learning, all the time! I love your questions.

[@craiglowery4427]

Very informative video Sarah. Can I use a stacked image from a color planetary camera? Why only a DSLR type camera?

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thanks, Craig! Yes, you can use a stacked image from a planetary camera :) sorry for the confusion. I just didn’t want someone to think they could take a single .FIT for example and bring it into PS.

[@deanpratley125]

How are we to know, that is how the moon actually looks, and not just a slight colouring job. I’ve seen pictures like this from other photographers. I’ve seen my own, in great detail. I know my camera can bring out colours that I sometimes can see with my own eyes, but how am I to know wether or not the software is adding detail that isn’t really there. Just a thought. Good tutorial and video instruction. Thanks.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Great thought - it's hard to know for sure unless you're digging into the backend of the software. Typically I can tell when software adds in things and with this workflow, I don't notice that. But of course, things can happen at a very low level and in the aggregate, it would be hard to tell.

[@davidpittman4564]

I would like to get away from the theft Adobe does, can you recommend other software that can be used offline?

[@SarahMathsAstro]

I think GIMP is a great alternative: www.gimp.org/downloads/

[@dreikonig2785]

Affinity Photo

[@cigarnationwarriors]

Blood appears quite black in moonlight.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Indeed?

[@JanLarssonfred]

A BIG problem with this video..:)...I like to see this teacher and Yes, it takes away a bit of learning but it adds a lot of loveliness.. Thanks anyway SuperSarah!!

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you, Jan!!

[@mediabyjw]

nice work. and you very beautiful.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Thank you!

[@beatsntoons]

Now do HDR :)

[@SarahMathsAstro]

I love HDR!

[@x5-acousticguitarstuff.2]

I have some MOON Videos on my Channel from a NIKON P900 with a 2000mm Optical Zoom Lens. I had No Special Mount, just a Basic Tripod... I am a Subscriber to your Channel. Please let me know how my Moon looks from your PRO point of View.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Hey there! I just checked them out! They are awesome - you get some really great detail with that setup, especially with the edge of the moon! I'm also amazed that some of them were done free hand! Was image stabilization used on your camera or lens or both? Great work and thanks so much for sharing :)

[@x5-acousticguitarstuff.2]

@@SarahMathsAstro Thank you so much Sarah... Yes without a Mount the Earth and Moon move fast and are hard to keep in Frame. I was also surprised by the Video detail and the Lumps of Rocks in the Creators.... I used the Cameras In-Camera Stabilization for the Free hand Shots. Your Videos are so cool and great to watch, so keep'em coming.

[@polisheverything1970]

The result is pretty but considering I've seen the moon through observatory telescopes and these colours are simply not there I just don't see the current fascination with adding all this false colour and calling it a "Mineral Moon".

[@SarahMathsAstro]

To each their own, certainly!

[@pharaohjoshua]

I fell asleep half way through the video.

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Sleep is important

[@craigyd01]

Is it wrong to find you hot because of your knowledge and the way you talk? Asking for a friend! ❤

[@SarahMathsAstro]

Oh!