In this video tutorial I’ll be walking you through how to process Milky Way images in Photoshop as well as adding a light painted effect to the foreground.

First off a big thanks to my friend Nagesh Mahadev for letting me demo these techniques one one of his amazing images. Be sure to check out his work on his 500px page and his Facebook page.

The tools used in this video are available in Photoshop CS3 and onward with no other plug-ins needed. Some of the tools we’ll be using include:

  • Channel based selections
  • Contrast adjustment with curves
  • Colourizing with curves, selective colour and fill layers
  • Various blend modes
  • High pass based contrast adjustment
  • Dodging and burning

Thanks for watching and don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more updates!