About Me

My photo
A retired Welshman living in wonderful Plymouth in SW England, I’m a family man, novice sailor and boat builder, astrophotographer and motorhomer. With a passion for all things to do with education and the sea and skies above, I have a sense of adventure and innate curiosity. I write three blogs. ‘Arwen’s Meanderings’ charts my learning to sail a self-built John Welsford designed ‘Navigator’ yawl. Look out for her accompanying YouTube channel www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy . ‘UnderSouthWestSkies’ follows my learning journey as I take up astronomy and astrophotography; a blog for beginner’s new to these hobbies, just like me. ‘Wherenexthun’, a co-written blog with my wife Maggie, shares how we ‘newbies’ get to grips with owning ‘Bryony’ an ‘Autosleeper’s Broadway EB’ motorhome, and explores our adventures traveling the UK and other parts of Europe. Come participate in one or more of our blogs. Drop us a comment, pass on a tip, share a photo. I look forward to meeting you. Take care now and have fun. Steve (and Maggie)
Showing posts with label composite shots in affinity photo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label composite shots in affinity photo. Show all posts

Thursday, 20 March 2025

Affinity photo - Learning to blend a foreground image with a night sky shot in affinity photo

 I hit the YouTube rabbit hole the other day. The weather was lousy and I was going through my portable hard drive trying to tidy up folders and delete duplicates. I found these that I had forgotten to process properly. 

An opportunity then to practise doing sky replacement in affinity photo. 

This is my latest effort - Wembury Mill on the south Devon coast, just to the east of Plymouth Sound. 

I took the foreground image just after nightfall. I cant remember the settings - sorry! I forgot to write them down in my little notebook. I did briefly paint the mill with my head torch beam though. I then returned to capture the milky way galactic core just after it started appearing around 0330 ish. That I tracked. ISO 800, 35" x 20 or so. No calibration frames. 

Not my best shot but not bad - I rushed things on the night.
However, it was good practice for trying to get to grips with Affinity Photo
The sky shots were stacked in Sequator first. 
The Milky Way above Wembury beach, south Devon 

My last photos that I did of the area were these: 

Somehow I managed to get a funny red line between sky and far cliff line - absolutely no idea why - but it was a post processing mistake. I suspect I applied a mask and then did some painting selection brush work which didn't quite work out properly 
Milky Way above the Great Mewstone, off Wembury Point, south Devon

Taken from a slightly different position on the beach from the one above. 



Below are the videos I used to help me work out how to do sky replacement.