Question on layering images.

52Caddy

Can anyone provide a brief explanation on how to layer images on top of one another to get a better shot?
I'm wondering about taking a few shots of some stars and put them together to get a better quality shot.
I seem to remember a program called astro-stacker that would do something to that effect.
Thanks,
Eric

schmoe

Everything blending explained ...
Here is a great tutorial on blending for dynamic range.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/blended_exposures.shtml

There's several methods of accomplishing it. Some are easier than others. This tutorial is written for PS if you are using some other imaging program the steps are essentially the same but you may have to make some adjustments.

Hope it helps!

wxwax

Hmmm, are you talking about stacking a series of identical frames to reduce noise? If so, I'm not sure that wuld help with star shots, would it? I mean, the stars would have moved between exposures, no?

schmoe

wxwax wrote:

Hmmm, are you talking about stacking a series of identical frames to reduce noise? If so, I'm not sure that wuld help with star shots, would it? I mean, the stars would have moved between exposures, no?

It depends on the effect you're going for. If you take the images very quickly, like in 3 shot burst, I doubt the stars have not moved enough to amount to anything and would not be noticed in a layered image.

However, if you take several long exposures over a longer period of time and stack them you will get star trails as they move across the sky which can be very interesting effect.