My cousin told me my star photos looked flat and I finally get it

I was showing him my Andromeda shot from my backyard in Boise, and he said, 'It's sharp, but it feels like a sticker on black paper.' He pulled up a composite from a guy in Arizona that layered different exposures, and the depth was crazy. How do you start building that kind of layering into a single target image?

4 comments

4 Comments

torres.blair1mo ago

Oh man, your cousin nailed it with that sticker comment, I've been there. So you're basically looking at making a composite, right? I started by taking a bunch of shots just for the galaxy's bright core at a low ISO so it didn't turn into a white blob. Then I took a ton more at a higher ISO to really pull out the faint outer dust. Stack each set separately, then blend them together in something like GIMP or Photoshop using layer masks. It's a game changer for making the whole thing feel round and real.

ivan_harris10d ago

Start reading the manual that came with your stacking software, or look up a tutorial on HDR composition for astrophotography. The core of this is about dynamic range. Your camera can't capture the bright core and the faint outer wisps in a single set of exposures, one of them will always be blown out or black. So you need to shoot two sequences. Take a batch of short subs for the core, maybe 15 to 30 seconds at a lower ISO, then a batch of longer subs, like 3 to 5 minutes, to pull out the faint nebulosity. Stack each batch separately. You don't even need Photoshop for the blend, most stacking programs like DeepSkyStacker or Siril will let you do a simple HDR combine on the two resulting images. It gives you a single file where both the core and the arms have good detail. That's what kills the flat sticker look.

henry_ross1mo ago

Remember my friend had the same issue with his Orion shots. He started taking many shorter exposures at different ISO settings, then used free software like Sequator to stack them. The key was he masked the core separately to keep it from blowing out, then blended that layer back in. Made the nebula look like it had clouds instead of just being a flat shape.

shanew591mo ago

Honestly, that "sticker on black paper" feeling is so real. I fixed my own flat M31 shots by taking two completely different sets of data. One set is just for the bright core, like maybe 30 second exposures to keep it from getting blown out. The other set is long, like 3 minute exposures, to really grab the faint outer arms. You stack each pile separately, then blend them as layers. The trick is using a soft brush on the layer mask to let the bright core from the short exposures show through over the long exposure layer.