Dealing with an awful lot of stars

[hjw]

I had already posted this image in deep sky imaging and asked the question whether there is a way to reduce the dominance of the stars in the image. Unfortunately, the nebulas are in a very bright part of the milky way - between the eta carina nebula and the southern cross. I do not have a UHC filter which I understand would help.

I found the star mask button in DSS and it found more than 13,000 stars in the image but what do I do with it? The other question of course is: Would you? The stars ARE there, so should I live with it?

Thanks

HJ

[wxsatuser]

They are there so should be in the image.

May be we want them as small as possible so they don't dominate the scene.

Anyway, nice image, I really like the wider star filled images.

[jambouk]

Lovely image

[Psychobilly]

Cracking image -  to answer your question , There are various plugins or actions you can use for PS if you want to reduce the size of the stars in an image...

I'm just trying to remember which are free ones and which are part of purchased "sets"...

This was using the make stars smaller action from Noel Carbonis Astro Actions set for  Photoshop...

Peter...

[martin_h]

You could give this a go.................. http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/48558-star-reduction-action/

[Psychobilly]

Nice one Martin for digging it out and of course Peter Shah for making it availabe...

Peter..

[hjw]

Thank you gentlemen. That's exactly what the doctor ordered . Even though a friend of mine, who is more into observations, would call it cheating... Here is my new and improved effort.

Thanks again!

HJ

[ollypenrice]

One of the hardest things to get right in processing. The first trick should be to try not to stretch the stars so much in the first place - while still stretching the nebulosity. 

You can make a star mask in Ps. The method I use is similar ot one described in a Doug German video. The thing with star masks is to use them very, very gingerly or they will make a right old mess. They do help, though. Discard them earlier rather than later.

You can also do a separate 'starfield only' stretch in Ps and blend it where there is no nebulosity to worry about. A curve something like this will bring up the background but not the stars.

Olly