Using Lightroom to edit Star Trails - my first attempts

craynerd

craynerd

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Name
Chris
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Hi guys,
Bear with me a little, I`m fairly new to my Canon 70d, new to star trails and new to lightroom but I`m chuffed to bits with a 1 1/2 hour session I got up a local hill a few nights ago. I photographed in RAW and I`m just a little lost how best to post process them! I`m inclined to bring out the blue but is that the right thing to do? Is there anyway to bring down the prominence of the clouds.
I have used the software StarStax to stack and layer my 80+ photos. I could just do with some advice to get the best out of my pictures. I appreciate they are never going to be prize winners but I would appreciate your opinion of how to get the best out of them.

Here is an example of a processed single photo. In the RAW it is just incredibly dark:

29700057815_3a1c8c159d_z.jpg



Here is one of the earlier shots before it got fully dark:

29700062385_260dcf9f68_z.jpg



Then stacked a processed in a few ways:

Version 1:
29409247190_f3c381c9cb_z.jpg


Version 2:
29588612482_21d91aa76d_z.jpg


Version 3:
29618852291_a732141132_z.jpg


Version 4:
29700030485_f54d18d137_z.jpg



So there you go, I`m pretty chuffed with it as its my first star trail outside of my garden. I accept the clouds spoil it and it`ll never be perfect but I`m posting on here as I would like you advice regarding what looks best and what I should be trying to achieve post processing. You can see the first three are very blue which was intentional because it looked right to me but is this wrong....

Any help appreciate!

Chris
 
Yes that is. Yes, I used StarStax but you have to post process the photos before you stick them in and that's what I`m stuck with!
 
Shoot in JPEG. Saves doing PP and LR will only convert them anyway. Also saves room on your card so you can shoot for longer.

There are as many opinions on star trails as there are star trails to look at. Some like totally dark. Some like a blue sky. Some like the orange street glow on the horizon. They all have their place. Which is best? The last one you did!
 
Wow....shoot in JPEG? I`ve only just moved to shooting in RAW after reading as much info about digi photography as I could! Now my mind is blow!
 
Well....as I understand it Lightroom will convert from RAW before processing. If you shoot in large JPEG you won't suffer too much. 30 sec exposure for each shot at ISO 400 or 800 won give you too much noise. There's not a lot of detail in a night sky so the lack of RAW won't be too apparent.
 
Excellent set, get out and take some more, and shoot RAW ;)
 
Don't waste your time shooting RAW because they will only be stacked as JPEGs so you are just creating needless delay.
 
No worries.... I`ll start a RAW v JPEG thread somewhere but for now, any advice as to what I should have done to improve these images post processing would be really appreciated.
 
Nice star trails for a first attempt. How you choose to colour it is pretty much down to personal preference. I think I like version 1 best because the colours are more natural, but that's just me.

However I think you've done yourself no favours at all by shooting when the sky is so light, and so unevenly coloured, and with those brightly lit clouds there. The stacking process has turned the clouds into horrible stripes that completely detract from the star trails (in my opinion), and there isn't anything you can easily do about that in post processing.
 
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