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Vent: a guy at the star party in Joshua Tree told me my Milky Way shots looked 'cooked,' and now I can't unsee it
I've been stacking about 40 frames at ISO 3200 and pushing the contrast hard in post because I thought the punchy look was the whole point, but he pointed at my 2022 shot of the core over the rock pile and said the stars were blown out and the color was fake. So I dropped to ISO 1600 and started keeping my edits flat, and honestly the new stuff looks duller to me even if it's more accurate. Do you all edit for what the sensor actually caught or for what looks good on a phone screen?
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dylanward10d ago
The phone screen thing is the real trap here. You edit on a bright phone and the next thing you know every shot looks like a neon poster, then you open it on a laptop and it's mush. Try this: edit flat at first, then bump contrast in small steps and check it on your phone at half brightness before you save. If the stars still hold their color at half brightness, you didn't overcook them. The punchy look isn't wrong, it just needs a ceiling, and half brightness on a phone is a good one to test against.
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