Colorado Night Sky

[DirtWells]

I took these about a month ago in southwest Colorado. Each of them is about a 20 minute exposure. It's only my 2nd attempt at night-sky photography, so CC is greatly appreciated.

In addition to CC, any thoughts about how to get rid of the few "light" spots in the third shot (it was from a porch light on a neighboring cabin)? I didn't notice the light when I was taking the shot, but with a 20 minute shot, it picked it up.

Thanks!

[scottbuckel]

I really like the first one the most. I like how part of the landscape is lit well, and others are not.

To get rid of the light spots you could possibly use photoshop and the clone tool, but that will be a lot of work. I like taking a different approach to star trails - I take lots of shorter exposures and merge them with the lighten blend mode. This allows you to modified only the frames that have the stray light. It does require a bit more work, but for me it gives me flexibility (and to top it off I can create a time lapse as well!!)

Scott

[Patti Edens]

Ditto what Scott said about the first one. I guess that's a road going through and the car headlights painted the foliage for you? Very cool looking. I really like the water in the third shot too - it makes for a great foreground.

I don't know what software you use, so hard to make suggestions on the light spots, but if you have Photoshop CS5, the Spot Healing Brush Tool set on Content Aware can fix that pretty easily.

I gave it a quick try and also tried to make the water a bit lighter to see what that would do. Hope you don't mind me playing with your photo. If you do, please let me know and I'll take it down asap.

Using a spot light and painting the water and maybe the foreground trees in that shot might have been cool or just shooting a shot overexposed and blending with your startrail might achieve the same thing. Actually, I think I like your original better with the light on the water and trees just like you shot it.

[DirtWells]

Scott,

Thanks for the feedback and suggestion of merging shorter exposures. I've never tried that, but will definitely have to next time I make it out of the bright city lights.

Patti,

Actually, the light in the first shot is from a bunch of cabins down that hill (porch lights, etc.). Again, not that noticable by the naked eye, but over a 20 minute exposure, lights up the cliffs, trees, etc. nicely.

As for software, I'm still on CS4, but the spot healing brush in that version probably has the content aware (although I've never used it)...I'll have to check. Thanks for the suggestion. And I don't mind at all that you played around with my picture. It's nice to see what other photographers would do and see with my shots. Thanks for doing that.

Thanks,
Jon