2024 Solar Eclipse Photography Processing: Maximizing Detail with HDR Techniques 

I think those smudges around the prominence are from the radial blur step. I was able to get rid of the smudging by zooming into the prominences and spot healing on the subtracted layer (the gray one, e.g. at 22:48)

So, to summarize the process outlined in this vid: 1) Use multiple exposures (different shutter speeds covering at least 12-14 stops, or more, of dynamic range) 2) Align the multiple exposures to 'a reference layer' (usually use the fasted shutter speed exposure as the reference frame to align to) 3) Perform an HDR merge of the exposure stack - called OG in this video (this compiles the exposures to a single HDR image and increases the signal to noise ratio of the image) 4) The next "steps" essentially creates a high pass frequency separation of the HDR image. i. duplicate the HDR image - OG (place it above the HDR image in the layer stack) ii. perform a radial 'spin' blur to the duplicate layer/image (result is renamed 'blur' in this video iii. create an image in which the radial blur image ('blur') is subtracted from the HDR merge (OG) and the result is the 'subtracted' image (For those watching who use Affinity Photo: duplicate the HDR merge layer/image (OG) and perform a frequency separation on the copied layer and then discard the low frequency layer - retaining the high frequency layer. The high frequency layer is basically the same as the 'subtracted' layer in this vid) 5) Blend the 'subtracted' image into the OG image using 'multiply' as the blend mode. I would recommend trying 'overlay' or 'soft light' as the blend mode and observe the results. The 'multiply' blend mode is a blend mode that is used to darken. Hence the really dark resulting image at 12:00 6) Use your preferred techniques to adjust brightness, contrast, clarity, etc .... of the resulted image to taste. Correct me if I missed something. For the record, I employed a completely different 'HDR stacking' method that could be described as a 'manual adjusted gradient clipping merge' method for my exposures. I also added 'sky color' back into the image because, as we all know, to our naked eye: the sky is not black during a TSE- only the moon is black. 😉

Ok, I finally figured out GIMP for those of you without PS to do the Pellet method. For each exposure, duplicate the sole layer of the original image into another layer. Select the lower layer - this is the one we will blur. In GIMP, this is "Motion blur" in the "radial" mode. Make sure the center is in the center of your inage, and set your desired angle, then apply the filter. Now select the top, duplicated layer, and change the layer mode to "Grain extract". The resulting image is exactly what you get with the apply image, subtraction, 128 offset step. Flatten and save this as your subtraction image, then repeat for all your exposures. Once done, you have two choices. One is to apply the subtraction image to each original image: open the original exposure, then add the subtraction image in a layer above it, but change the layer mode to "Grain merge". This will apply the enhanced detail to the original image, which you can then save and stack as described here. The other option is that you can layer up all of the subtraction images together, and play with what that detail is applied to. Make a new image with all the subtraction images as layers, but change their blending mode to "Grain merge". Underneath all these layers, add another layer that is one of you exposures or a basic merged HDR, and the enhanced detail will be applied to that.

Hi Naz, this is a great video adding to the collection of HDR videos out there. It is going to help people. I am going to try your techniques with my eclipse images. Thanks for posting this.

Such a great capture! Thanks for showing us your workflow.

Very cool! The detail you brought out is excellent! Thanks for the tutorial!

Naz, thank you for this video. I will try to manually align my non-bracketed 7-images and hope to get a good result. You're the best. Thanks man.

Thanks for another great video. I followed along and got a great stack from my photos. My wife and I took the rv to Batesville, AR and had great skies and temps. I used SetnC, connected to my DSLR, with a 400mm lens and 1.4 extender. Tracking with the az-gti went well. and thank you for the solar glasses!

Shared! Thanks!

Thank you. I can relate about the day job. lol.

I shot up in Burlington VT. I stacked two runs of approx 14 images each run and got similar results. I also went back and attempted to group 7 sets of each exposure as averages then stack those together into one image, but that method failed miserably. I'm gonna go back and try this again but im pretty happy with my first run. Cheers and thanks for sharing

First of all, let me thank You for these excellent tutoriales on processing eclipse images, which are surely very benefical for all of us who want to process our images. Unfortunately I had clouds during My entire sequence of photographs of the event. However, I Will try to do the processing that You are showing us on your channel. In the case of this tutorial You performed the procedure for a single set of bracketed exposure images. When You have several sets of already processed AEB images, what method is used to combined all the sets...? Thank You very much in advance and I Will be watching your next videos for new information about how to avoid smearing in the prominences after the blur filter in Photoshop. Best regards

When I get to the point of converting to a smart object and setting the blending mode to mean, it's drastically reducing the extent of the visible corona. I do have a lot of exposures but cutting out some of the shorter exposures doesn't seem to help at all. Any suggestions?

It's interesting that the shape of the corona and prominences tell us what year the eclipse photo was taken. I followed your video (the previous one) to edit my totality photo. It helped a lot. Thanks. But instead of stacking multiple photos of different exposures, I only used one, duplicated it to make several layers, and adjusted the exposure of each layer. The end result has a lot of noise, though, but I'm still trying to find a way to remove the noise.

At 17:33 I think that's not stacking artifacts, but because when you did the radial blur and subtract, the prominences would get smeared into a pink blur, then subtracted from white corona. White - pink = green. It might make sense to edit out the prominences before doing the blur.

How have you resolved the green effects around the prominences? I'm having a similar problem. Also, the stacking alignment is still a bit of a challenge. I'm getting that bumpy look around the disc of the Moon even though I'm taking great care in aligning the images. Even if I stack only two images, the look is the same. Thoughts?

Thank you! Would there be any benefit to doing the blur/subtract/multiply on each image before stacking? In your video with the 2017 data, you mentioned that you were only stacking first to demo the Pellett method quickly, and that we might want to do the Pellet method on each layer. But here you also stacked first, so now I'm second guessing the ideal order. Pellet then stack or stack then Pellet? Also, is there any advantage to utilizing your other bracketed sets? And if so, I have the same question: Pellet before or after stacking?

Is there any way to cut the moon out and stack it separately and add it back?

Trying to figure out what I have done wrong, but the file is so large (like 3Gb) that PS has to save it as a .psb and not .psd. Still working through it to see if it makes a difference as I try to play along. Not like I stacked 100 layers or anything. I did use my .NEF files (not JPG) and maybe had a dozen.

I also wanted to ask you something. I didn’t bracket my shots because my camera was having issues the day before and I didn’t want to risk missing everything trying to play with the settings. But I did manually take a bunch of different exposures. When I went to stack them for HDR, the stacking was not uniform as the sun was in different alignments in each frame. Any way I can still align and do an HDR composite if the totality? Thanks

I just found a comet in my long shutter speed images and its not 12P.

Great tutorial. Unfortunately, my version of PS doesn't allow stacking....😢

Hi!! Were you able to do the circular alignment composite? Thanks.

What ISO?

If you're moon is not wonky looking, you're not aligning properly. You want to align to the background stars as they track similar to the corona. If you align to the moon, then your not aligning the corona.