layers in photoshop

[Andywilliams]

i'm sure this question has been asked a million times before but last night had me frustrated with my own lack of knowledge!. I did a nice wide-angle shot of the southern milky way with a large object in the foreground (Stonehenge aotearoa _ NZ....do come and have a look when you are on hols....its great!)....the image was a stack and so the foreground object looked odd and ghostly due to the image stacks. I wanted to take one of the original frames and superimpose the foreground object onto the nice milky way stacked image. Try as hard and long as I might, it was no good!....please help with this problem for me!....or point me in the direction of an online tutorial that will help....I spent ages looking on you tube but it was no good!

If I haven't explained it very well I will post the two images tonight (in about 6 hours) and what I am trying to do will become apparent. I am using the free trial of photoshop.

with gratitude in advance.

Andy

[N3ptune]

You can also use Gimp to do image manipulation, an open source alternative to Adobe.  it can do a lot of things and there are many tutorials, just in case you want to look at it.

https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Layer_Masks/

[Andywilliams]

Thanks for that ? I have been using gimp but thought I might try photoshop as a trial. I understood that photoshop was a superior product. Would you rate them as the same? For astrophotos ? 

[Ouroboros]

In what way was it no good as you describe it?  Understanding how to apply layers or how to combine them convincingly? Have you tried pasting the stacked Milky Way into a layer on top of the foreground. Then carefully erasing regions of the Milky Way to let the foreground image show through from underneath? You can change the transparency of the top layer so you can see what you need to remove. The trick in using layers in this way is to not see the join between your stacked Milky Way part of the image and the foreground image. This can be done with feathering.  You might check out how to use masks which are used to protect certain areas. In this case you'll need a mask with a fuzzy edge so that the foreground image changes seamlessly to the Milky Way image. 

[Andywilliams]

You are right.....I am at the bottom of the steep learning curve I'm afraid ! 

[Andywilliams]

[Andywilliams]

These are the two pics....only they have come out on here as different sizes !! It gets worse !  The top image is the stacked one....the lower one is the sharp foreground. I just need to practice with the lasso tool I think !! 

[Ouroboros]

Looks like you need to get the colour balance, stretch and sky background in the sky part of the image better before you combine with the foreground. It's got potential though. Worth soldiering on!

I hadn't realised ancient Britons got to Newzealand three millennia ago!

[Andywilliams]

thanks .....yes, i'm still very much at the beginner stage of processing!....the single sub looks more convincing as an image than the whole stack!....DSS seems to alter the colour characteristics!?......I thought I had stretched it quite well but maybe not.