How Lightroom's New Selection and Mask Tools Help the Night Photographer

Post-processing is an important aspect of the night photographer’s skill set, and now Adobe has made it even easier for us to quickly create very powerful adjustments.

Adobe’s latest Lightroom release (version 11.0, October 2021) is surely something you’ve seen in the photography news, and for good reason: It’s chock-full of both major upgrades and minor quality-of-life tweaks, all of which will help photographers create art better, easier and faster. Which means you can level up your photography!

Some of the smaller tweaks include greasing the bearings of working with keywords and metadata, making some filter choices sticky, and resetting local-adjustment sliders between edits so you don’t inadvertently apply unwanted changes later.

But the biggest news of all is that Adobe has has completely revamped the local adjustment tools in the Develop module. This set of tools is now called Masks, and it includes our beloved Brush, as well as the Linear and Radial Gradient tools.

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The new Lightroom selection and masking tools enable night photographers to make nuanced local adjustments more easily, more quickly and more effectively than before.

Even better is that these are now joined by the powerful new Select Subject and Select Sky tools, which are driven by artificial intelligence. We also now have the ability to select by color and brightness with the Color Range and Luminance Range selection tools. Moreover, we can add to and subtract from selections with ease, as well as invert and intersect them.

This update is an awesome upgrade for the night photographer and Lightroom user!

For the past ten days we’ve been delving into all these new and improved tools to see how they help night photographers in particular, and now we’re here to report back on our findings in a new video on our YouTube channel.

In This Video

In the video below, I illustrate several tips, including:

• an introduction to the new Masks tool

• working with your legacy local adjustments

• creating masks using the new Select Sky tool

• creating masks using the new Color Range tool

• creating masks using the new Luminance Range tool

Plus … a New Course!

I hope you find the video above useful for learning how to harness the power of the new Lightroom tools to create better night photography. But honestly, to fully apply these new tools in a practical way requires more than a 20-minute video can adequately portray.

So for those who want to delve deeper, or for those who learn better in a give-and-take, question-and-answer environment with live demos and teaching, we’ve put together a brand new online course: Lightroom Live: Selections and Masks.

If you’re interested in jumping right in with these new Lightroom features, join us later this month (click the link above for dates and times). The cost is $99, and we’re limiting the class size to 12 to ensure that everyone has time to ask questions and to get more personalized assistance.

Your Turn

If you’re anything like us (and we know a lot of you are), then you’ve already been playing with these new masking tools, and you’ll be revisiting some old images to edit those even better. We’d love to see how you’re applying these new skills! Feel free to share an image in the comments, on our Facebook page or on Instagram (tag us @nationalparksatnight and/or hashtag us #nationalparksatnight).

Tim Cooper is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. Learn more techniques from his book The Magic of Light Painting, available from Peachpit.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Pixel Perfect: 3 Workshops (1 Brand New!) for Leveling Up Your Processing Skills

Post-production. It’s the second rail of photography. But so many photographers chug along knowing only the very basics, honing just enough skill to get images off the camera and onto social media.

It’s understandable. In the film days, most people didn’t develop their own negatives nor make their own prints. So the transition to do-it-all-yourself in digital might not have been an obvious jump, nor even desired. Or maybe it’s that most modern photographers were introduced to post-processing via early versions of Photoshop, an anvil of software that’s hard and heavy to comprehend. Or maybe some photographers are just new to the game and haven’t yet had time to learn the keystrokes and mouseclicks that turn a series of 0s and 1s into an artistic masterpiece.

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Regardless of the reason, plenty of folks with a great photographic eye could use more assistance learning how to turn RAW files into great photographic images.

National Parks at Night is here to help:

• Since 2016 we’ve published post-production blog posts.

• In 2019 we launched and ran our first Post-Processing Intensive workshop.

• In 2020 we launched our first Lightroom Live online courses.

• And now, in 2021, we are thrilled to announce our first Photoshop Live online course!

Here’s a rundown of all the post-production courses and workshops we’re running over the next few months. Want to level up? Come join us!

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Photoshop Live

This sentence constitutes the very first time we’re publicly mentioning this brand new course—Photoshop Live: The Next Step in Post-Processing. This summer and fall, on a computer screen near you, we’ll teach how to take precise control of your images with skills such as:

• understanding the architecture of Adobe Photoshop, including the different editing and selection tools

• the strategy and best practices of using layers

• mastering advanced local adjustments and masking

• creating and editing star trail photographs

• stacking light-painted images

• blending Milky Way shots with blue hour foregrounds

• and more!

We’re capping each session of the course at 12 attendees, so each will have a good amount of personal attention to their questions. And as a bonus, each attendee will receive one hour of one-on-one time to with an instructor.

We’ll be running this course in sessions of four classes, each 2 hours long, on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two consecutive weeks. As of now, we’re offering three sessions:

Session 1: July 13, 15, 20 and 22 (waitlist only)

Session 2: October 19, 21, 26, 28

Session 3: December 7, 9, 14, 16

This Photoshop course is a perfect successor to our Lightroom Live course, the next session of which will be held in May (see below). So you could take both courses and—in just 16 online sessions—become proficient in these two pillars of digital photography!

For more information, see our Photoshop Live webpage by clicking here:

Lightroom Live

We launched this course last spring, and we ran three sessions of it in 2020. Now we’re offering it again—an online course designed to teach Adobe Lightroom, the most important piece of software for photographers, focused on the two most important modules, Library and Develop.

Learn everything from how to import and organize your images, to how to develop them with both basic and advanced tools and techniques. We’ll cover:

• understanding the Lightroom catalog

• making full use of the Library module in Lightroom, including keywords and collections

• gaining a complete understanding of Lightroom’s Develop module

• mastering advanced adjustments using the local adjustment tools

• and more!

Again with this course, the session will be capped at 12 attendees in order to ensure personal attention. Each attendee will also receive one hour of one-on-one time to with an instructor, plus a free copy of our video Lightroom: Correcting Your Catalog Chaos.

Just like with Photoshop Live, we’ll be running Lightroom Live in four classes, each 2 hours long, on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two consecutive weeks. The dates are May 18, 20, 25 and 27.

For more information, see our Lightroom Live webpage by clicking here:

Post-Production Intensive: Seattle

If you want a really deep dive into both Lightroom and Photoshop, in a vibrant and beautiful location, then join us in Seattle this July for the only Post-Production Intensive workshop we’re running in 2021.

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While the online courses mentioned above each entail 8 hours of total instruction, the Post-Production Intensive workshops involve 6 full days of on-site, hands-on instruction in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Moreover, on at least a couple of nights, we’ll head out as a group to photograph the urban scenery of the Seattle waterfront. That’ll be pretty easy to get to, as we’re staying in a gorgeous hotel right on the city shores of Puget Sound, in walking distance from great shoot locations, scrumptious food and plenty of baristas pressing that famous northwest espresso.

For more information, see our Post-Processing Intensive: Seattle webpage by clicking here:

Other Opportunities

We also have other ways to learn about post-processing! Including:

Night Photo Summit Replays

In February we ran the very first online conference dedicated to night photography, the Night Photo Summit! All 43 presentations from the online conference are available as streaming videos with the purchase of a Replays ticket.

Of those 43 presentations, half a dozen are heavy on post-production, from basics such as “Capturing and Processing the Milky Way” by Tim Cooper and “Noise-Reduction Strategies for Night Photography” by Michael Frye to more advanced topics such as “Blue Hour Blends & Composites” by Jess Santos and “Creating a Basic Time-Lapse Video” by David Marx.

Meteor Shower e-Book

Four meteor showers in 2021 will rate as decent to excellent for photography, including the Eta Aquarids in May! Do you know how to shoot and process a meteor shower radiant? You can learn in our e-book Great Balls of Fire: A Guide to Photographing Meteor Showers.

Blog POsts that were and Will Be

As mentioned earlier, we’ve written a few blog posts on post-production, all available to read for free anytime you want. Some examples:

• “Dehaze: The Night Photographer's Secret Weapon”

• “Lightroom for the Night Photographer: Learning to Master Local Adjustments”

• “The First Steps to Processing Milky Way Images in Lightroom”

• “Processing Star Point Images with the Help of Starry Landscape Stacker”

• “Cleaning the Clutter: How to Get Your Lightroom Catalog in Tiptop Shape”

To see what we’ve done in the past, here’s a link to all our posts. Scroll down to the Post-Production section to see the 22-and-counting titles we’ve written about the topic.

And … you caught the “and counting” part, right? We have more on the way! (Tips on printing, anyone? How about using Sequator for sharp stars? Keep your eyes peeled right here.)

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Five Questions: Star Trails Under Moonlight, Coma, Great Smoky Mountains and More

Many of you like to ask questions about night photography. And guess what! We kinda like answering questions about night photography. That’s how we roll. So let’s … um … roll!

This installment of our “Five Questions” series features inquiries about star trails under moonlight, a very dim light panel, coma testing, Lightroom panels, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

If you have any questions you would like to throw our way, please contact us anytime. Questions could be about gear, national parks and other photo locations, post-processing techniques, field etiquette, or anything else related to night photography. #SeizeTheNight!

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1. Star Trails in Moonlight

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Star trails on a moonlit night, Yosemite National Park. © 2020 Tim Cooper. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/4 lens. Ten stacked exposures shot at 2.5 minutes, f/9, ISO 100.

Question:

Last night I reviewed some star trail photos. Several were long exposures under moonlight, which turned out very bright—out of the camera they looked like daylight. Which would be better—lowering the ISO (from 400), closing down the aperture (from f/4), or using a neutral density filter? — Kathy E.

Answer:

In the circumstances you describe, the thing to do would be to go down to ISO 100 and also stop down to f/5.6 or f/8. Full moon exposures of 4 to 6 minutes at f/8 and ISO 100 are about right, depending on the desired effect.

If adding light painting, one might consider adjusting the base exposure up or down to manage the ratio of existing to added light. If longer star trails are desired, then combine multiple exposures in Photoshop until the trails reach the desired length. It’s possible to stop down further to get longer shutter speeds, but if you stop down too much then dimmer stars won’t show up.

There’s really no reason to use a neutral density filter for this situation—it only increases the odds of problems with flare or general loss of image quality from lesser glass in front of the lens, or from dirt, finger prints or condensation. The only time I use ND filters at night is when shooting long exposures of the moon streaking through the frame. — Lance

2. Seeing Coma

Question:

I read your blog post about measuring lens coma, and I want to compare the Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 with the Zeiss 18mm f/2.8 and the Zeiss 25mm f/2.0 (I own both of the latter). What magnification in Lightroom should I use when comparing the images from these three lens? When I zoom to 11:1 (the greatest magnification), I really can’t tell what I am looking at because the stars just look like little boxes. — Hadley

Answer:

So glad you are inspired to run your lenses through the paces. Awesome. I recommend 4:1. If stars are not round at that magnification, then you’re probably looking at coma. — Matt

3. A Very Dim Light

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Question:

During one of your presentations at B&H’s OPTIC Imaging Conference, there was a recommendation for a portable light that could dim to levels lower than most other lights available. Unfortunately I didn’t write it down. Can you share this gear recommendation? — Jason L.

Answer:

Thanks for watching our class during OPTIC! The light we were referring to is the Luxli Viola 2. When used with the Luxli Composer app, you can drop the intensity to as low as .5 percent.

For Low-level Landscape Lighting we typically use the Viola at .5 to 2 percent. It also optionally comes with a diffusion panel that would dim it down a touch more. — Gabe

4. Solo Panels

Question:

When I am in Lightroom’s Grid mode and have the Folders panel open, the Collections panel is all the way underneath and requires a lot of scrolling to get to. Is there a way either to lock the Collections panel in position so it is always visible at the bottom while the Folders panel is expanded, or to place the Collections panel above the Folders panel? — Marc

Answer:

If you right-click (PC) or control-click (Mac) in the dark gray title area of any panel, you can select “Solo Mode.” This will enable a feature that always collapses all of the tabs except the one you are using. In addition to solving your specific problem, this keeps the whole Lightroom interface cleaner and easier to work with. — Lance

5. Smoky Spots

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Newfound Gap, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. © 2019 Matt Hill. Nikon Z 6 and a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8. 871 Seconds, f/4, ISO 200.

Question:

My daughter and I are planning a trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park for four nights. We would appreciate your recommendations for the best night, sunrise and sunset photography. My daughter is expecting our first grandchild and I am looking forward to taking a few maternity photos in Cades Cove, so any thoughts on that would be great too. — Susan E.

Answer:

For sunrise and sunset, you’ll want to be at the overlooks. Clingmans Dome is good for both (especially with clouds in the valley), and the overlooks on the southern half of Newfound Gap Road can be good. Because you’re in the mountains, you need to be up higher to see the sun break the horizon. Also, this is technically outside the park, but the overlooks on the Foothills Parkway (also a administered by the National Park Service) can be good.

Not for sunrise and sunset itself, but for shooting in the post-sunrise and pre-sunset light, I can’t recommend Cades Cove enough. I could spend a whole week shooting just in there. It’s a great place for those maternity photos—just drive the loop road and you’ll find far more locations than you can use. Also look at the two dirt roads that cut across the valley (Hyatt and Sparks Lane), as they’re quieter and rather scenic.

For night photography, Cades Cove is great, but no cars are allowed after sundown, so you’d have to walk. You’d be looking at anywhere from 2 to 11 miles roundtrip, depending on how much you wanted access to. (You could also go in on a bike.)

For stars, again, get to the overlooks and/or to Clingmans Dome. You can also find some open skies along Little River Gorge Road and in the meadow next to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. If open skies aren’t important and you’d just like some things to light paint, try the abandoned resort town at Elkmont.

Finally, because you’re staying near Gatlinburg, you might want to try the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. It’s a part of the park that many visitors don’t go to because it’s not off the main park road, but is certainly good for photography, especially under overcast skies. — Chris

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

How to Deal With Light Pollution, Part II: Post-Production

Note: This is the second in a three-part series about one of the most common questions we get: How do you deal with light pollution? We have three answers: with filters, with post-processing, with creativity. In this week’s blog post, Lance Keimig discusses the second of those solutions: processing in Lightroom.

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Last week, Matt wrote about his experiences testing a couple of light pollution filters, and he showed how they can be useful for neutralizing color casts in clouds from artificial lights, in reducing atmospheric haze, and especially for taming the beasts known as sodium vapor lights.

He showed that the two filters he tested work primarily by filtering out a narrow band of intensely orange light that is particular to sodium vapor lights. Before the widespread adoption of LED street lighting, high pressure sodium vapor was the most common form of street lighting used worldwide. These lights are still quite common, and until they are eliminated altogether, light pollution filters will probably be the first line of defense against the color shifts they cause in photographs.

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The image above is a good example of the types of artificial light sources that cause light pollution. The intensely yellow lights are low pressure sodium vapor, and the others in the scene are high pressure sodium vapor. Canon EOS 6D with a Nikon 28 mm f/3.5 PC lens. 6 seconds, f/8, ISO 200.

When we consider the problem of light pollution in night photography, there are two conundrums:

1. unwanted color casts in the clouds and in the sky

2. stray light that obscures the stars in our images

Light pollution filters can address both of those issues, providing that the bulk of the light pollution is from sodium vapor lights.

However, if you don’t use a light pollution filter, post-processing offers an alternative method to correcting unwanted color casts from light pollution in night photographs. In this post and the accompanying video (you can jump to it here), I’ll show you examples of how you can employ post-processing techniques to minimize unwanted color casts from light pollution. All of these examples utilize Lightroom Classic’s White Balance, Hue, Saturation and Luminance (HSL) and local adjustment tools to achieve the desired effects.

The first example (Figure 1) is one that I made last year during our Shi Shi Beach adventure in Olympic National Park. In this case, the lights from Victoria on Vancouver Island reflected off the low cloud cover and turned the sky yellow. A simple white balance adjustment took care of the yellow, and then a little HSL work with the targeted adjustment tool helped with the red and magenta from the beacon on the hill. I could not remove all of the red and still have the image look natural, so I just toned it down a bit.

Figure 1. Light Pollution over Vancouver Island. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/4 lens. 693 seconds, f/5, ISO 800.

I made the next image (Figure 2) at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory in California. Light pollution on the horizon to the south shows a yellow glow from sodium vapor lights. HSL adjustments took care of removing the unwanted yellow from the image.

Figure 2. ORVO and Milky Way. Canon EOS 6D with a Nikon 20 mm f/3.5 AIS lens. 20 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

The image from Lassen Volcanic National Park (Figure 3) also had yellow light pollution at the horizon, but also a fair amount of yellow and orange in the soil at the foreground, so an HSL adjustment would have affected more of the image than needed. In this case, I used a local adjustment brush and desaturation to solve the problem.

Figure 3. Cinder Cone, Milky Way, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Nikon D750 with an Irix 15mm f/2.4 lens. 25 seconds, f/3.2, ISO 6400.

Dealing with light pollution in urban environments tends to be a bit more involved, and also subject to taste in how the image is presented. Below are two examples from Lowell, Massachusetts, an environment primarily lit by sodium vapor with a host of other light sources thrown in for good measure. For this first one (Figure 4), I used a gradient on the sky to remove the color cast without affecting the foreground.

Figure 4. Lawrence Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts. Canon EOS 5D with a Nikon 28mm f/3.5 PC lens. 74 seconds, f/8, ISO 100.

In this last example (Figure 5), setting the white balance by using the eyedropper on the clouds eliminated the color cast from the ambient sodium vapor lights, but exaggerated the cyan from the metal halide lights on the structure. A selection with the local adjustment brush enabled me to desaturate the cyan on the building without affecting the rest of the image.

Figure 5. Lawrence Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts. Canon EOS 5D with a Nikon 28mm f/3.5 PC lens. 73 seconds, f/8, ISO 100.

Video Tutorial

In the video below, I offer more detail on how I accomplished the edits I mentioned above, walking you through all the steps for achieving the same results in your own photos affected by light pollution.

Wrapping Up

As you can see, if you don’t have a light pollution filter, or even if you do, post-processing techniques offer another option for dealing with light pollution in nocturnal images. The techniques are most effective at minimizing color casts from gas discharge lights such as sodium or mercury vapor, or metal halide lights.

However, be aware: If the stars are obscured by scattered light in the atmosphere and are thus not recorded by the sensor, no amount of post-processing can bring them back. However, judicious use of the Dehaze slider will help bring out the stars that are present, and can also compensate for the loss of contrast from light reflected off of particulates in the low atmosphere that are the source of the problem.

In Part 3 next week, Chris will write about learning to live with light pollution in night images, and how to turn a hindrance into an unexpected bonus. Stay tuned, as the more tools you have at your disposal, the better your chances of a successful image regardless of the light conditions!

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 35 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Keeping Our Galaxy Real: How Not To Overprocess the Milky Way

Note: This post concludes with a video of Gabe walking through how to process a realistic-looking Milky Way. Want to jump straight to that? Click here.

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Do you remember the first time you saw the Milky Way?

So few of us have access to starry skies that the wow factor was undoubtedly very high. What you saw on the back of your camera and then on your monitor was even more exciting, and in this excitement you probably pushed your post-processing to bring out the stars just a bit more … and just a bit more … and just a bit more … and. …

This is a very normal and common experience. However, taken too far, it also detracts from reality—many of the night images we see online simply do not reflect what the Milky Way actually looks like.

In this post, I aim to help you process your Milky Way shots in a more natural and realistic way.

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Milky Way panorama. Nikon D750 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm. Seven stitched frames shot at 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

Star Witnesses

If you search the 3 million images tagged #milkyway on Instagram, you’ll notice that over 80 percent of them are overprocessed.

What do I mean by that? In those images, the Milky Way looks very unrealistic—too contrasty, over-sharpened and full of colors that jump out at you. In short, it looks like no Milky Way we have ever seen in the actual sky.

Yet the likes and positive comments pile on! Why is this?

The general public is still unfamiliar with what the Milky Way really looks like. Their only experience with it is what they see online. The Milky Way still has a high wow factor, and as technology and post-processing techniques become more powerful, photographers can eke out all sorts of additional detail. The problem is that so many eke out every detail.

We want to bring a realistic vision back to the Milky Way. The Milky Way should be the chorus to your song, but all good songs have a gradual build: highs and lows that build to that chorus. A good photograph should guide us throughout the whole image with a similar tempo.

Below is an example of a Milky Way image that is processed naturally versus one overprocessed in a way that’s commonly seen on the web. Note that in the overprocessed version the tonal range is not as smooth, the colors are too punchy, and there is very little separation between the Milky Way and the stars that surround it.

The left version might look "wow," but the right is closer to what the Milky Way actually looks like. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm. 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 12,800.

Avoiding Overprocessing

Most overprocessing pitfalls can be rectified by fewer global adjustments and more local adjustments. I know the global tools in Lightroom’s Basic module are right there and ready to use. But the astro-landscape photo is made of two different elements of exposure: the sky and the landscape. They often require different considerations on how to process them.

Globally applying Dehaze because it will successfully enhance your sky could very well have an adverse effect on the colors and shadows of your foreground. Unless your foreground is a silhouette, it’s best to think of your Milky Way image as two images and process them accordingly with local brushes and gradients.

If you are working under dark skies with little to no moonlight, you might even consider shooting two images: one correctly exposed for the stars and another longer exposure that reveals detail in the foreground. (I covered this type of blending of two images in my previous blog and video about Starry Landscape Stacker.)

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An example of a blended image. First I shot a lower-ISO long exposure during civil twilight for the foreground, then a higher-ISO sharp-star exposure for the background, and layered the two in post-production. Being able to process the foreground and background separately allowed me to maintain a more realistic Milky Way. Hasselblad X1D with a Hasselblad 30mm f/3.5 lens. Foreground: 6 minutes, f/4, ISO 800; background: 23 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

Presence Sliders in Lightroom

Texture, Clarity and Dehaze are very attractive tools, as they can increase local contrast in a scene and really make an image pop. However, overusing them can lead to crushed shadows and unwanted shifts in color (as seen in the blog post linked above).

Think of these three adjustments as coming with great responsibility. To understand what they do, crank them to 100 percent, then slowly bring them back, and toggle between your full view and 100 percent to see how they fundamentally affect your image. Then when processing, use them judiciously.

• Texture

The newest filter in Lightroom (and the one I am most enamored by) increases sharpness without amplified grain or saturation. However, when overused, every star is sharpened and jumps out in the sky. This can compete too much with the Milky Way as well as falsely make every star look as bright as the next.

Depending on the scene, I like to add 3 to 8 points of Texture to my Milky Way by using a brush to add the effect locally. If I go above 10 on Texture, I really need to examine the effect at 100 percent zoom to make sure I’m not overdoing it. (However, that threshold applies only to the sky. If I have a well-lit rocky landscape, Texture is just what the doctor ordered to enhance the granularity of those rocks—for that I might use anywhere between 20 and 60 points.)

• Clarity

I often use Clarity in lieu of the Contrast slider. I’ll adjust my white and black points first. Then, if the Milky Way needs more punch, I’ll slide Clarity to anywhere from 5 to 25. However, I always keep an eye on the top corners of my image, as Clarity quickly heightens any vignetting and can make smooth graduations in the sky seem choppy.

• Dehaze

Brings contrast and saturation to an image. The former is great for boosting the low contrast that is often found in night skies. But keep an eye on that saturation—that’s where blues get wonky real quick. I never apply Dehaze globally; I typically apply it only via the Graduated Filter tool. My Dehaze adjustments can vary depending on the scene, but they usually range between 10 and 30.

It is also very important when you are combining global and local adjustments to remember that they build on top of each other. If you’re not precise in your workflow, you might get stuck fighting back and forth between how your global and local adjustments overlap and affect each other, sending you down the road of overprocessing. To avoid this, hone your global adjustments first, and only then start with the local changes to your Milky Way.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that our editing tools grow and change over time. I love Texture, but just a few years ago that tool wasn’t even in my imagination. It didn’t exist until about this time last year! Be sure to always keep a lookout for innovations in Lightroom that you can use to make your images better and better.

For example, I recently revisited the very first successful Milky Way image I’d ever shot. I hadn’t overprocessed then, but I had processed it with Lightroom 3 (below, left). That was a great program for its time, but it had some limitations compared to what’s on my computer today. Now, using Lightroom Classic 2020 (below, right), I get some finer detail out of the file.

Shot in 2010 with a Nikon D700 with a Zeiss 21mm f/2.8 lens at 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400. Left: Processed in Lightroom 3 with +12 Clarity, +11 Vibrance and +20 Luminance Noise Reduction. Right: Processed in Lightroom Classic 2020 with more subtle local adjustments, less noise reduction and more magenta.

Putting it All Together

I made this video that walks through my considerations for processing the Milky Way in a more natural way. I point out the sliders that we might slip too far on, and I share my Milky Way brush technique for subtly bringing out the finer details.

Now, if you’re one of the overprocessing culprits … First, know that you have a lot of company. But second, know there’s a better way, and we’re happy to help.

Stop processing the Milky Way with a hammer and a bucket of paint, and then share your images with us below in the comments. Or, better yet, share them online on Facebook or Instagram! Tag @nationalparksatnight and let’s educate the world on what the natural Milky Way really looks like!

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photo’s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT