Combining/stitching foregrounds with wide field images

[Scooot]

Hi all,

I thought I might try to image a meteorite shower and wondered about combining a composite with a foreground image.

I wondered if anyone can advise on software to do this and whether there is a favourite or any that are fairly simple to learn? I currently use Pixinsight for my Astro images, although I haven’t taken any recently. 
 

 

[Elp]

Most image editing programs that have a layer system can do it, but it's not a simple button press and it's done, you have to mask out or delete parts of one layer you don't want and overlay the foreground over the background (sky). Integrating them to look like they were shot at the same time is even harder, one of the reasons why people tend to image the foreground at the same time prior to the long exposure star background.

Photoshop is the main one, unless if you have a CS version it's now subscription only (I'm not sure Elements allows the complexity that the standard version does), GIMP is a free equivalent. Affinity you can buy with one off payment and own it.

[Elp]

For stitching a foreground you can try Microsoft ICE (obsolete software but it can be found online). I would NOT use it to stitch your star images though, from experience it deletes areas of the sky. Use a proper plate solving piece of software for this, PI should do it easily.

Or if your cameras allows you to automatically do panos in camera, use that.

Edited August 3 by Elp

[Scooot]

10 minutes ago, Elp said:

Most image editing programs that have a layer system can do it, but it's not a simple button press and it's done, you have to mask out or delete parts of one layer you don't want and overlay the foreground over the background (sky). Integrating them to look like they were shot at the same time is even harder, one of the reasons why people tend to image the foreground at the same time prior to the long exposure star background.

Photoshop is the main one, unless if you have a CS version it's now subscription only (I'm not sure Elements allows the complexity that the standard version does), GIMP is a free equivalent. Affinity you can buy with one off payment and own it.

Many thanks for your help.

I do have a photoshop elements version and used a gradient layer before for combining a decent sky with a landscape. Didn’t think this would be so successful with an Astro image so wondered what others used. Maybe I need to subscribe to a full photoshop but thought I’d ask others first.

[Elp]

I'd have a look at GIMP, it's free. It's similar to PS but works a bit differently. No harm in trying it.

[Scooot]

4 hours ago, Elp said:

I'd have a look at GIMP, it's free. It's similar to PS but works a bit differently. No harm in trying it.

Thanks again,

Starry Landscape Stacker lookers interesting.

edit, just realised can’t use this with Windows.

Edited August 4 by Scooot

[wavydavy]

On 03/08/2024 at 23:15, Elp said:

For stitching a foreground you can try Microsoft ICE (obsolete software but it can be found online). I would NOT use it to stitch your star images though, from experience it deletes areas of the sky. Use a proper plate solving piece of software for this, PI should do it easily.

Or if your cameras allows you to automatically do panos in camera, use that.

Hi if you can find ICE online please let me know, I cant find it anywhere.................regards.

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, wavydavy said:

Hi if you can find ICE online please let me know, I cant find it anywhere.................regards.

I'm sure I posted the link I used to download it on these very forums.

Trying to find it now will post if I do.

Might just have been a random Google search result too. Maybe from cloudy nights

[TiffsAndAstro]

6 hours ago, wavydavy said:

Hi if you can find ICE online please let me know, I cant find it anywhere.................regards.

found it linked here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/252274/how-to-download-image-composite-editor-2-0

answer number 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20190223050207/https://download.microsoft.com/download/7/3/9/73918E0B-C146-40FA-B18C-EADF03FEC4BA/ICE-2.0.3-for-64-bit-Windows.msi

https://web.archive.org/web/20190309221948/https://download.microsoft.com/download/A/7/8/A7804C73-ECDB-4459-BB3E-A7F13C4C5382/ICE-2.0.3-for-32-bit-Windows.msi

im reasonably sure its legit but obviously up to you to decide