I always wondered how it might feel to see the milkyway with your own eyes. So we packed up for a night shooting trip to Cherrpunji hoping for clear skies and the view of the majestic.
We got first time lucky and it felt awesome so see it, as you see it in the picture here.
Emotions apart some of my friends asked me to show how I produced this view. So here it is...
This is a single 25 second exposure shot on Nikon D7200 and Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 at 11mm f2.8 ISO1600. So here is the standard before and after :)
Now here are the steps how I reached here.
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| Triple processing. |
I prepared the image on Lightroom by triple processing it.
#1 is for the Milkyway with some clerity and contrast to the sky.
#2 is for the warm foreground and the tree fixing the white balance.
#3 for the storm clouds with lighting to maintain some details in its highlights.
Now I opened all three files as layers in Photoshop, keeping the tree frame in the bottom.
Milkyway frame in the middle and used a mask to only show the milkyway on it.
On top of that I kept the storm cloud frame and used a mask to just bring out the detail in the clouds.
After that I used three selective contrast curve adjustment layers to add and subtract contrast in the clouds, reflecting water and the mid ground rocks.
Then I enhanced the colours in the sky independently to the milkyway centre and the storm clouds.
And finally added a little bit of bright midtones and warmed up the foreground. And voila its done.
I hope this will help you processing you own milkyway shot.
