PS CS^image stack tutorial

8/13/2019 PS CS^image stack tutorial

1/10

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August 5, 2013

T

her

e are a number

of

dif

f

er

ent way

s to stack

images in Photoshop CS6, I'

ve f

ound

this method to be the f

astest and it

u

ses the least amount of

PC r

esources.

T

he number

of

images y

ou select at a time will be determined b y

the amount of

availab le r

am you

have in you

r

PC. I

have 32gb and I wor

k with about 80-100 images at a time (

D800E 36mp 14bit RAW

wor

king in 16b it mode), the idea

is to keep CS6 f

r

om using the scratch disk

, which happens when all availab le RAM

has been used

.

If

y

our

sy

stem is low on RAM

there ar

ea f

ew things you

can do to r

educe the memory u

sed by

photoshop, y

ou can r

ead

abou

t optimising photoshop perf

or

mance on theAdob e website.

T

he easiest way to monitor

CS6 scratch disk

u

sage is with the ef

f

iciency indicator

at the bottom lef

t of

the scr

een. Click

on the ar

row and select '

ef

f

iciency'

fr

om the menu

. If

this numb er

dr

ops below 100% that means CS6 has u

sed all

availab le RAM and is now u

sing a har

d

disk as vir

tual RAM

.

Select your

images in Br

idge, hold dow

n SHIF

T and click on the f

ir

st and last image y

ou want in the selection.


2/10

Right click on one of

the highlighted

images and select '

open in camer

a raw'

.

In camer

a raw click

the '

select all'

box at the top lef

t, I apply lens cor

r

ection, auto white balance and a small satu

r

ation

boost. Click done and you will be taken b ack to Brid

ge. (

The camer

a RAW

step isn'

t essential, bu

t I f

ind

the lens

cor

r

ection in camer

a raw to be a lot better

than lens cor

r

ection in photoshop).


3/10

Now go to the menu b ar

at the top and select Tools>Photoshop>load

files into Photoshop layer

s.

Load

ing the images into photoshop can take a while, especially

if

the images ar

e stored on a mechanical har

d drive,

stor

ing them on an SSD makes the whole pr

ocess go a lot quicker

.


4/10

W

hen they ar

e finished loading, hold down the SHIFT

key

and click the fir

st and last lay

er

in the stack to select all the

lay

er

s, now go to the dr

op down menu

at the top of

the lay

er

s pallete and select '

lighten'

.

T

he images ar

e now stacked but we have some unwanted tr

ails f

r

om planes f

ly

ing through the scene.


5/10

T

o r

emove these we need to go thr

ough the lay

er

s one at a time and paint over

them using a small black b r

ush. Star

t

by holding ALT and clicking the ey

e icon next to the top layer

, this will show that layer

and

hide all the other

layers.

M

ak

e the br

ush size just big enough to cover

the tr

ail, then paint over

it. Try not to paint out any b r

ight star

s when doing

this, although you can use the spot healing b r

ush later

on the stacked image to fill in any gaps caused by painting over

star

s. T

he black lines will not be visible once we enable all the other

lay

er

s.

Now ALT click the eye icon on the next lay

er

, this will select the layer

and hide all other

s, paint over

the tr

ail, k

eep

r

epeating this u

ntil you

'

ve done all the layers. This pr

ocess can take a very long time, I live to the nor

th of

an

international ai r

por

t and I usually end up with betw

een 600 and 1100 images for a star

trail shoot, u

sually

around half

of

them will contain plane trails.

W

hen you get to the last layer

, r

ight click on the ey

e icon and

select '

show

/

hide all other

lay

er

s'

, all layers should now

be visible and the plane tr

ails removed.


6/10

In photoshop tutor

ials Tags startr

ail stacking, photoshop stack

ing, stacking star

tr

ails, stacking tu

tor

ial

25 Likes

Lee SW

150 cu

stom b af

fle W

hat'

s in my bag?

Comments (17)Su

bscribe via e-mailNewest Fir

st

F

latten and

save the image, now go back to brid

ge and

star

t over

again with the next batch of

images. W

hen f

inished

y

ou can now

stack all the f

lattened im ages together

, f

latten & save.

Af

ter

some f

inal editing y

ou shou

ld end

up w

ith something like this:


7/10

amazing....

T

hanks f

or

he tutor

ial and

stellar

image ju

st spectacu

lar

..

How many photos, have you taken in or

der to get end ef

f

ect ?

672 x 40 second exposur

es

W

ow, you

wer

e tak

ing pohotos f

or

about 7

,5 h.

You have got a long suf

f

er

ing.

W

onder

f

ul photos!! I am a big f

an of

y

our

wor

k and I am wonder

ing how d

id

you

get these vivid colors... T

hey

ar

e so b eautif

ul...

Great tutorial , thanx f

or

the tips:)

Pr

eview Post Comment

Jef

f

rey Xu about 2 week

s ago

Darren Howie about 2 week

s ago

Kamel ab

out 3 week

s ago

Lincoln Harrison about 3 weeks ago

Kamel ab

out 2 weeks ago

Cynthia ab

out 2 m

onths ago

Cherestes Janos Csaba about 2 m

onths ago


8/10

Its a awesome tu

tor

ial, but I f

ollow you since months, and I try to do this star

trails (

I love this color

s

) but I don

t have never

this color

s.

W

hat is the pr

oblema?

M

any

thank

s

F

ascinating.

I'

m a huge f

an of

your

wor

k and I'

m pr

etty

su

r

e it'

ll b e that way f

or

ever. I have two questions. #1 W

hat time d

o

y

ou star

t taking the photos? #2 How do you

ad

just y

our camer

a settings thr

ou

ghout the d

ay to make su

r

e

ever

y

thing is an even exposur

e. Ok, I lied, one mor

e qu

estion. #3 W

hat d

o y

ou pick

as you

r

main f

ocu

sing

ar

ea. I imagine you lock the f

ocus and hole it the entire time??

Huge Fan,

Edwar

d

I thought I replied to this alr

eady... I star

t abou

t 30 minu

tes af

ter

sunset, I m eter

the shot like a nor

mal

landscape shot. Once its dar

k

I select camer

a settings based on the moon phase and the amount of

light pollution. I set f

ocu

s so the f

or

egr

ound

ob jects are f

ocused, the stars can ber slightly

def

ocu

sed

without hur

ting the shot. Do not change f

ocus or

the images will be near

impossible to align.

I'

m a big f

an of

y

our r

ise to f

ame, I used to f

ollow you

on F

lickr

a cou

ple of

y

ears ago bef

or

e 500px came into

the game. I suppose the big secr

et is how do y

ou get the br

ight colour

s saturated thr

ough the star

s?

Obviously you HDR the f

or

egr

ound

w

hich look

s br

illiant. Per

fect amount of

light without distracting f

r

om the

stars. I'

m guessing you channel mask to f

ind the sky

then wor

k

the colours and pump them, then "lighten"

with the stars, bu

t how the hell do you

get those vivid colour

s thr

ou

gh the T

r

ails?

T

he other

question I have is, what do you do f

or

12hour

s? Do y

ou head

pout into the bush and set up and

leave your

gear

there (

then come back

bef

or

e sunr

ise) or

do you camp it ou

t?

Daniel Llamas about 3 m

onths ago

Edward James about 3 m

onths ago

Lincoln Harrison about a m

onth ago

Sean Tassi about 3 m

onths ago


9/10

Hi Sean, I haven'

t used HDR f

or any of

my shots since I got the D800E, which was in novemb er

2012. I generate a channel b ased contr

ast mask to isolate the sky

f

r

om the f

or

egr

ound. T

he vivid

colours ar

e a combination of

pr

ocessing and camer

a settings, its easy to get colour

s but to get the

r

eally vivid ones takes a b it more ef

f

ort. I'

ll cover

those techniqu

es in f

u

tur

e blog posts.

Sometimes I'

ll leave my gear

ther

e, it depends on how isolated the location is. If

I stay ther

e I

ususally

load

up the ipad with movies.

Please could you explain how you

have develop recent Star

tr

ail photo that you have u

pdated r

ecently

in this

website? Please cou

ld you

ab le to wr

ite detail b log about r

ecent wor

ks?

T

hank

s

W

ow thankyou so much f

or y

our

ad

vice! is ther

e any way

to d

o this u

sing lightr

oom and not b r

idge?

I dont use lightroom, i'

m not su

r

e if

you can export images as a stack

. You can load

them f

r

om insid

e

photshop, f

ile>scripts>load f

iles into stack

Hi, as a note, in Lightr

oom (

I think as f

ar

back

as Lr

2) y

ou have the option to select multiple

f

iles, r

ight-click, and f

r

om the context menu choose to open f

iles in Photoshop as layers. It

uses ACR to r

ender

the images in as 16-bit lay

er

s but can be a r

esour

ce hog (

not any

dif

ferent f

r

om br

idge r

eally except f

or

some r

eason on 2011-12 apple devices you may

want

to close Lr

af

ter the stack loads b ecause it also eats up r

esou

r

ces alar

mingly

).

Gr

eat posts and discussion her

e, thanks Lincoln.

Lincoln Harrison about 3 m

onths ago

Kvlion ab

out 3 m

onths ago

Ben Hirst ab

out 3 m

onths ago

Lincoln Harrison about 3 m

onths ago

Khris Griffis ab

out 3 m

onths ago


10/10

Documents

PS CS^image stack tutorial