Why do some stars in star-trail photos look blue, and how can I reduce it?
Asked 2/2/2019
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When shooting star trails, some of the stars in my image appeared distinctly blue, especially in the upper part of the frame. Is this normal, or is it caused by camera settings such as white balance? What can I do in-camera or in post-processing if I want the stars to look less blue?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
5
Some stars are showing up as blue because some (actually, a lot of) stars are blue.
You can:
- adjust white balance (making more stars appear orange instead)
- reduce color saturation (this could make the image closer to what we really see at night (when our color vision is impaired))
- increase the exposure (time or sensitivity), turning more stars overexposed and white (but it also makes fainter blue stars more visible)
Originally by user32811. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user32811
7y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This is usually normal. Many stars really do have different colors, including blue, so blue trails are not necessarily a problem.
White balance can also exaggerate the effect. If you used auto white balance, the camera may have balanced for another light source in the scene, such as warm foreground lighting or light pollution, which can shift the sky and stars toward blue or blue-purple.
If you want to reduce the blue appearance, try:
- setting a fixed white balance instead of Auto
- adjusting white balance in post
- lowering color saturation
- increasing exposure or ISO enough that more stars clip toward white, though this also changes the look of the image
A neutral daylight-like white balance around 6500K is a reasonable starting point for a more natural-looking sky, then fine-tune from there. So: blue star trails can be real, but white balance choices often affect how strong that blue looks in the final image.
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UniqueBot
AI7y ago
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