Need quick course = Stacking Images 101

[ViewStars]

About a month ago I used paint.net to successfully stack 5 star photos, and I thought it was totally easy to do.

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But that was just beginner's luck.  This was an unfortunate discovery, recently.  I have another set of star photo images now, which I want to stack, but I forgot the exact sequence of steps which I had done previously.  Unfortunately, I failed after several attempts.

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Could someone please give me some stepwise instructions on simple stacking?  Simple, for example:  The set of images I now want to stack are already positioned in exact registration relative to each other, so I won't need to do any lateral shifting or rotating to align individual layers.

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I do remember that I was using an opacity number of 128 when I did do that successful stacking.  I'd like to know if that was a good guess on my part.  I really liked the output stacked .JPG from what paint.net stacking did for me.

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Thanks

BeginnerStarPics

[Djisves]

It looks like you need to understand how layers work. Once you get that, creating collages will be routine.

Have a look at: Layers Window and Working with Layers. You may also want to read Blend Modes.

 

There is also a quick tutorial at https://www.isimonbrown.co.uk/pdn-collage/. It's for an older version of PDN but it'll help you with the basics.

 

[ViewStars]

Thank you !!!

[ViewStars]

I have a set of star photos which are separate exposures of the same part of the sky.  I want to stack them, because the stacking will intensify the fainter details, and in addition to that, stacking will cancel out any digital noise which each individual exposure might have.

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I read very closely all 3 of the tutorials you provided, and I understood everything in them, and am grateful to have received them.

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But I need more tutorials.  The tutorials you sent were helpful, but I when I tried stacking the star photos, I still was not successful.

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I tried "Import From File" and got all photos loaded, but instead of being labeled as "Layer" they ALL got labeled "Background".  I went ahead anyway and made each of them have Opacity = 128 andkept Blending = Normal, but when I got finished with making this change to all of them, the resulting image on my monitor had not changed (I.E. no stacking occurred).  I tried "Merge Layer Down" and merged all of them down into one single layer, but that did not work either.

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Please send me more tutorials to read, if there are any more available.  The tutoral link to isimonbrown. . . was nice to receive, and I viewed it, but that tutorial is about making a collage, and that is not the same kind of combining layers, as what I want to do with combining layers to achieve stacking.

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This is frustrating because I DID successfully blend some star photos with paint.net, and it was my first try, and it was incredibly easy to do, and totally successful, but I forgot exactly the sequence of steps that I followed.  I thought I could guess and then do it again, but so far I am getting nowhere.

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Thanks in advance

[Djisves]

It looks like I misunderstood you use of "stacking".

What you want to accomplish is beyond my knowledge. Is it like HDR?

Until someone more knowledgeable come to the rescue, try a forum search using https://forums.getpaint.net/forum/51-paintnet-search/

[Pixey]

@ViewStars Welcome to the forum

 

Perhaps your initial try was very lucky.  As far as I know, I don't think Paint.net can do what you are asking.  PDN does not have the feature called 'focus stacking' like Photoshop , and can't differentiate between the different layers automatically.