Photo Editing Tutorials
I'm excited to announce that I've finally created a full-length Astrophotography Post-Processing Course, which contains over 10 hours of tutorial videos! This course will teach you how I process my nightscape and deep space astrophotography images using Adobe Camera RAW, Photoshop, and Sequator. For beginners, I've included a Basics Course which will teach you how to use the main applications and get much more comfortable using them. I've even included my own RAW images, so you can follow along and practice. For advanced users, you'll want to check out my blending techniques! We'll be using Luminosity Masks to easily create a clean blend between two photos. This process is specifically designed for night photos. This is by far the most comprehensive astrophotography-related post-processing course available!
For more information, head over to the official Astrophotography Post-Processing Course page.
Before
After
If you're interested in editing photos of nebula and galaxies, you'll want to check out my brand new Deep Space Course. This course has over 9 hours of videos that will teach you how to find, photograph, and edit the best deep space objects. We will cover 10 objects in the Deep Space Course, and each one has a full-length post-processing workflow. You'll learn how to bring out faint details, enhance colors, reduce noise, stack multiple images, and much more! Click here to learn more about the Deep Space Course.
Free Tutorials
Adobe Camera RAW
This Video Tutorial provides an in-depth look at Adobe Camera RAW, including: White Balance, Lens Corrections, HSL Sliders, Sharpening, Noise Reduction, and more!
Enhance Fall Colors
In this video I cover various ways to fix colors using Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop. You can use these techniques to alter the colors in any photo, however this video is mainly geared towards bringing out the beautiful Reds, Yellows, and Oranges of Autumn.
Landscape Tutorial
Learn how to edit your landscape photos using a variety of Photoshop tricks and techniques. This tutorial also covers the exposure blending process using Luminosity Masks.
Macro Focus Stacking
In this video I show you how to increase your Depth of Field in Macro images. First, you need to take multiple images in the field. I recommend using a tripod and remote shutter with the camera in Live View mode. When you are using Live View, you can Zoom-In and perfectly tweak your focus. Your goal is to have photos of the entire subject in focus. I recommend starting at the front of your subject, and slowly working your way to the back. You may need to take 10+ images to get the entire subject in focus.
Milky Way Tutorial
In this Tutorial I show how to create a stylized Milky Way photo using Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop. If you want to learn more about Milky Way Photography, check out my full-length guide.
Nebulosity / Star Reduction Tutorial
In this video I show my personal Nebulosity workflow. My main goal with this process is to bring out more detail in the Milky Way and nebulae.
Reduce Noise - Photo Stacking
This tutorial explains how to use Sequator, a free program that will help reduce noise in your photos. By taking multiple images of the same scene, you can blend the photos together and effectively remove the ISO-related grain. A tripod is necessary to collect these images. This method can be used on all types of photography, as long as neither the camera or scene moves between each photo. I recommend taking 10-20 photos to reduce the grain effectively. For more information of collecting the initial photos, check out my Milky Way Tutorial.
Remove Hot Pixels
This video is crucial for all Long Exposure photographers. Hot Pixels start to appear in your images when the sensor heats up. I notice Hot Pixels mainly when I do long exposures during the day. Milky Way photographers will also occasionally see Hot Pixels in their photos. The best way to remove Hot Pixels is in-camera. For Nikon shooters, turn on Long Exposure Noise Reduction in the Photo Shooting Menu. Once activated, LENR will automatically remove all of the Hot Pixels in your images! However, it will also double your total exposure time. So a 30 second photo will now take 1 minute. This can really eat up valuable time, so I normally only use this on warmer days / nights when the sensor will have lots of Hot Pixels.
Star Tracker Blending Tutorial
This is a great tutorial for blending two exposures together using Luminosity Masks. The main goal of this tutorial is to show how to create a clean, detailed layer mask for blending the foreground and sky photos together.
Star Trails Tutorial - Photoshop
This tutorial covers the Photoshop method of creating Star Trails. If you don't have a good computer (SSD and 12+ GBs of RAM), you may want to skip this method and use StarStaX! For more information on collecting the Star Trails images, check out my Star Trails Tutorial.