Beginner needs advice on editing Milky Way pictures (and stacking)
Recently i bought my first REAL camera.
Previously, i'd enjoy shooting on my phone, but recently the drawbacks of phone-tography started catching up with me.
I bought it right before going on holiday, so i got acquainted with the camera pretty fast (even though it's a Sony, lol)
Some of my first photos that i really enjoyed, were photos of the Milky Way.
Taken in Gran Canaria where, apparently, the skies are protected and light pollution is minimal. As far as i can determine, 'stellar' conditions for astrophotography.
I included one of my photos!
But just for a laugh, let's see what i did wrong here:
- I didn't turn off Steadyshot
- Took multiple different exposures -at different ISOs- because of an interpretation error. English is not my first language lol.
- Took a maximum of 5 'exposures' for each shot i was planning to stack. I found out i should've taken more. But drift of the milky way would start posing problems since i don't own a shutter release cable and had NO idea of there being an interval shooting mode. haha.
I'll try to formulate my questions clear and concise:
1. Imaging Edge Viewer from Sony gives all kinds of options for 'exporting' the raw photos. There are brightness controls, noise reductions, color temperature and more.
Would i use any of these options BEFORE moving to lightroom or PS?
Is it a safe plan to try stacking now all my pictures have these different ISOs?
Before stacking, i would match/even out all my -differently ISO'd- stack candidates in Imaging Edge, and apply noise reduction etcetera, before moving on to lightroom/PS.
Or do i just do it all with lightroom? The noise reduction that Imaging edge applies is barely noticable, and it's factory algorythms, which could help.
2. Is there a set order in which to apply brightness/contrast/highlights/shadows/noisered. onto photos? I apologise if this is a typical noob question. I'd assume lightroom presents it in the most logical order?
3. I have dark frames (that i can brighten to look like target photo) and i have brighter frames. (technically ETTR-expose to the right candidates? That's what i was going for)
Is it true that i can negate color noise with these frames? I understand the way a light exposure might have less color noise, but what can a dark frame do for me?
Thanks all!
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