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c/astronomy-photos•lee847lee847•3mo ago

A guy at the star party told me my Orion shots were all 'too blue'

He pulled up one of my photos on his phone and showed me how to adjust the white balance in my editing software, which I had never really touched before. Now I spend an extra ten minutes on each image just playing with those sliders, and it makes a huge difference. Do you have a specific color tweak you always do first?
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4 Comments
marywilson
marywilson3mo ago
You had never touched the white balance sliders before? That's wild. I always start by warming up the shadows a tiny bit, it just feels more natural to me.
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victor_robinson
Been there, that white balance rabbit hole is real.
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joel_clark37
joel_clark373mo agoTop Commenter
Tell me about it, I spent an hour last night trying to get a gray card shot right. It never looks the same on my monitor as it does on my phone.
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rose_reed
rose_reed1mo ago
Hold your horses on that white balance tweaking. I actually think people get way too hung up on color correction these days. Half the time they end up with images that look completely unnatural, like they are trying to make the sky look like something out of a cartoon. A little blue in an astro shot can be honest to what was actually there on a cold, clear night. You might be losing some of the real mood and atmosphere of the scene by chasing some perfect neutral tone. If it looked blue through your telescope, maybe that is just part of the story the photo is telling.
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