Twilight Milky Way

[crimbfighter]

I was up in Saint Germain, WI, this past weekend and had a little time to capture some images. I captured this shortly after twilight, but the moon was rising fast to I couldn't wait for completely dark skies. As a result I couldn't capture as much detail in the Milky Way as I would have liked. It was at least enough to see the galactic center. I also used a light pollution filter which I think helped cut down on some light pollution from neighboring towns.

D800, 20mm f/1.8 @f/2, 20 sec, ISO 2200

 

[mannytkd]

Oooo now that is nice indeed.

 

[crimbfighter]

Oooo now that is nice indeed.

Thank you!

 

[bulldurham]

Just messing around....slow morning and as much curious as to how much twilight light I could remove and still keep the integrity of the original theme, the Milky Way.

 

[crimbfighter]

Just messing around....slow morning and as much curious as to how much twilight light I could remove and still keep the integrity of the original theme, the Milky Way.

View attachment 161613

Not too shabby! Looks like you pulled the sky down almost a full stop. Was it just a tone curve adjustment? I assume more than that, but I'm not sure what else.

 

[bulldurham]

Just messing around....slow morning and as much curious as to how much twilight light I could remove and still keep the integrity of the original theme, the Milky Way.

View attachment 161613

Not too shabby! Looks like you pulled the sky down almost a full stop. Was it just a tone curve adjustment? I assume more than that, but I'm not sure what else.

I didn't touch the curves adjustment in the way you might think but used the lasso tool to loosely isolate areas of the galactic center, then added a curves adjustment with the blend mode set to Multiply, lowered the opacity to about 60%, then clicking on the adjustment mask, used the feathering tool to blend the hard edges into very soft edges, adjusting both the opacity and feathering to taste. I did the same with the brighter parts of the star clusters but used a levels adjust to brighten, lowering the opacity and feathering again to taste. I a nifty technique to use. For the foreground, it was just a matter of several graduated blends, black to transparent and some cloning on the overly lighted areas. I did use the above technique on the foreground boat to knock down the brightness using an exposure adjustment and then feathering the selection. When doing the graduated blend, I did so on a selection of the trees, down and up and in the selection used the mask tool to ensure the sky wasn't adjusted as well.

I have three samples of what I did per screen shots and it is not that I would do this, but only as how I did what I did.

 

[DGMPhotography]

Nice shot of the sky, but the foreground ruins this for me. I'm not sure I would have made it as dark as the edit above, but maybe a nice compromise. I think you should have done some exposure stacking here, to remove the motion blur in the foreground.