Rant: people keep stacking Milky Way shots into bright blue mush and calling it editing

Casey King · 2026-09-23T03:50:02.829674+00:00

I help run a small astro meetup here in Spokane and about 6 of the 9 photos folks brought to our January session had the same problem. The Milky Way core came out this flat, washed out blue instead of the warm dusty gold it actually looks like, and when I asked, every one of them had pushed the saturation and brightness sliders way up in post. I get it, a stacked shot looks dark and boring straight out of the camera, but cranking it like that kills the dark dust lanes that make the core look like a real cloud of stuff. Try pulling your white balance toward 4000K or so and lifting the shadows just a little before you touch saturation, it makes a huge difference. Has anyone else noticed this trend getting worse, or is it just the folks I shoot with?

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Rant: people keep stacking Milky Way shots into bright blue mush and calling it editing | Astronomy Photos - Pinecone Attack