Got called out for my washed-out star trails

I posted a 30 minute star trail stack from my backyard in Tucson last month. Someone commented 'you're clipping the highlights so hard the core detail is gone.' I checked my raw files and they were right, I'd pushed the whites too far in Lightroom. Now I keep the histogram peaking just below the right edge and check each sub. Has anyone found a better way to keep star colors without blowing them out?

3 comments

3 Comments

sage_perry2mo ago

I saw a video about using a soft light layer to protect star color.

the_luna21d ago

5 subs into my first attempt at Milky Way core shots I realized I'd accidentally been exposing for a moon that wasn't even in the sky yet. The stars looked like little fried eggs. Now I basically babysit the histogram like it's a toddler near a power outlet - one wrong move and everything's ruined. I still blow out my star colors sometimes but I just tell myself it's an artistic choice called "being bad at post-processing." That soft light layer trick actually helped me recover some color from my failed Andromeda attempt last week though.

wrenwilson2mo ago

Man I used to just crank the whites slider until the stars popped. Then I processed a shot of Orion and the whole belt just turned into a white blob, zero color left. Now I make a separate layer just for the stars and adjust that one super gently. It keeps the reds in Betelgeuse and the blues in the Rigel system actually visible.