

For Format, choose JPEG, with quality 12 (the best possible).ħ.
Startrail gimp free#
In this example, I didn’t make any changes to File Naming, but feel free to use your own file naming scheme.Ħ. This will allow the images to be saved wherever you please.

The Save Options dialog opens: Star trail sequence: Saveĥ. When you’re done making adjustments, click the Synchronize button so all your images will use the same settings. Don’t worry about how the foreground looks as we will take care of the foreground later by using the foreground image we captured during the shoot.Ĥ. Process the image so that the sky looks how you want it to look. Once you have the images in Adobe Camera Raw, click the Select All button. This will open all of the selected images in Adobe Camera Raw: Star trail sequence: Basic Settings (Camera Raw)ģ. After making your selections, right-click (PC) or Control-click (Mac) on one of the thumbnails and choose Open (or just choose File > Open). In this example, I left the last 10 or so frames out of this process because there is too much light in them.Ģ. While still in Adobe Bridge, select all the images you want to use in your final image, except for the dark frame and foreground shot. You can skip this part if you shot in jpeg format.ġ.
Startrail gimp series#
Notice that the last two shots in the series are the dark frame and the foreground image as described in Part I.įor this example, I’m using Adobe Camera Raw to convert the raw files to jpeg. On the other hand, the color and light variation in these shots can help to create a richer image, as long as they are not too bright, which would cause the star trails to look faded. On the one hand, this is less than ideal as there is too much light in the photos taken toward the end of the shoot. In this case, I started the trail sequence a bit late (around 4:44am) and the sun rose about one hour later. I used Adobe Bridge to import all the images and landed here: Images loaded in Adobe Bridge
Startrail gimp software#
I use Adobe Photoshop, but the steps are reproducible in any other photo editing software such as GIMP (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) or Paint.NET (Windows only), both of which are viable, free applications. Image editing softwareĪfter creating the final image with the glorious star trails, we’ll need to give it some finishing touches like correcting little details, and adjusting color and contrast.

However, StarStaX is free, simple to use and will give us great results. As with anything else in image processing, there are any number of ways to achieve a similar end. Of course, we could blend the images using other software.
Startrail gimp download#
You can download it by following this link. It will run on Windows, Max OS and Linux. For that, we’ll use StarStaX, which is a free image stacking and blending software that was developed specifically for star trail photography. We’ll need to stack and blend all those images we took in Part I into a single image that will show the Earth’s movement in relation to the starry sky. If you shoot in jpeg format, you won’t need to do this conversion. For this, you can use any raw converter like Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Lightroom or even the software that came with your camera. If you shoot in raw format, which I highly recommend, you’ll need to convert your raw files to jpeg because the current version of the star trail blender software we will be using can’t handle raw files yet. If not, now would be a good time to have a cup of coffee or a spot of tea before we get started on creating the final image. I hope you got some rest afterwards as that was only the beginning. The first part was all about the shoot itself. Welcome to Part II of my star trail shooting tutorial.
