Advanced Stacker PLUS v14 An Owners Guide The ADVANCED STACKER+ from StarCircleAcademy is a set of Photoshop actions that allows you to stack star shots into star trails including creative things like Comet-like trails and preparing sets of shots for a timelapse animation and much more. See the list of Features, below. New in the ADVANCED STACKER+ are built-in features to improve star visibility in the night sky with a single click and, of course,all the features previously available in the Advanced Stacker. And there is more, too. You can batch resize, add your own watermarks and save files. With ADVANCED STACKER+ you can turn these: Into this with just a few clicks.
Will ADVANCED STACKER+ Work on My System? ADVANCED STACKER+ has been written and tested with Photoshop CS2, CS3, CS5, CS6 and CC. In short, we believe it will work with ALL versions of Photoshop from CS2 up to the latest version of Photoshop CC (Creative Cloud Version). We encourage you to test for compatibility before purchasing the ADVANCED STACKER+. Download and install the StarCircleAcademy TEST Stacker to verify everything works for you. Install the TEST Stacker as described below. On CS5 and later, you ll be able to use all the features of the Advanced Stacker PLUS with no intervention. On CS2, CS3, and CS4, you ll have to fix up a few of the advanced features manually as described in the Installation section. Versions of Photoshop prior to CS5, for example, do not look for Script files in a reasonable way so you have to override/recreate some action steps or just disable them. Obtaining ADVANCED STACKER+ You can purchase ADVANCED STACKER+ from the StarCircleAcademy STORE. Once purchased, you will receive links to the action files. Download and save those files right away as the links will expire in 48 hours. Saving the files is usually as simple as right clicking the link and choosing the save option in your browser. Installing the stacker is as easy as opening the actions or dragging them in to Photoshop. For an instructional video on how to obtain and install the actions, please see here: https://vimeo.com/64961277 Features The ADVANCED STACKER+ has more features than can be described in just a few sentences. The ADVANCED STACKER+ can be used to do more than creating star trails. Indeed, it s not restricted to night photography. ADVANCED STACKER+ Can: Combine a series of shots to lighten them (additive) e.g. to enhance the foreground of night shots Combine a series of shots to turn static star shots into star arcs (trails) Create smoothed water in shots taken in daylight without using special filters Create star trails that look like meteors or comets Combine daylight shots of e.g. clouds drifting through the sky Combine a series of timelapse shots to show the movement of the moon or sun over time.
Output a series of files that when animated appear to show stars with growing tails Create interesting animation effects of elements like steam rising from a factory, or airplanes traversing the night sky. Dramatically increase the visibility of stars and star trails (or other bright point light sources) in an image. Automatically resize, watermark and save series of images [Batch Resize] and you can customize the size, cropping, and output file type with just a few clicks. Average shots for a smoother background or smoother transition between images. Apply dark frame correction to reduce hot pixels in night shots. Operate on literally any kind of image that Photoshop is able to open: JPG, RAW, TIFF, PNG, BMP, DNG, etc. Unlike other Photoshop plugins, scripts and actions, ADVANCED STACKER+ is very easy to install. If you can click your mouse, you can install the action! Restrictions Most operations work only with RGB images, not with e.g. LAB, or Multichannel images. Less exotic types like CMYK and grayscale appear to work as expected. However strange errors may crop up if using other image types and operations may only partially complete. If you find yourself in a part done scenario, it is usually better to start again from the beginning.
Installing ADVANCED STACKER+ (and TEST Stacker) Both the ADVANCED STACKER+ and the Test Stacker come as zipped file sets. Download the zip file then uncompress it. The Advanced Stacker PLUS will uncompress to its own folder. On a PC Navigate to the folder where the ZIP file has been uncompressed then select the file "InstallSCA.RENAMETOBAT" rename the file to "InstallSCA.BAT". Run the Batch file as ADMINISTRATOR. To activate each of the actions, double click each of the *.ATN files you uncompressed. Adobe Photoshop will automatically open and save the plugin files in its working area if Photoshop has been installed properly, that is. If for some reason opening the *.atn files does not seem to work, then open Photoshop first and drag each action file into Photoshop. For a step by step video on obtaining and installing the ADVANCED STACKER+ see here:https://vimeo.com/64961277 If you have installed the TEST Stacker, your Actions window will contain the items shown in Figure 2: Actions in Photoshop Figure 1: The Photoshop Actions Window (CS3)
Figure 2: Actions in Photoshop If you have only installed the TEST Stacker, you will have only StarCircleAcademy TEST Stacker and StarCircleAcademy TEST Primitives listed in your Actions. Each of the folders represents a set of actions. If you have other actions installed on your machine they will also show up in the Actions window. Default Actions, for example, comes with Photoshop. Your actions may not be shown in the order listed. It is easy to rearrange them into the order you like by clicking an action set and dragging it. We suggest that you move the DO NOT USE set to the bottom as shown in Figure 3. Figure 3: Rearranging Action sets in the Actions Window
TEST Stacker The ADVANCED STACKER+ has incredible awesome power, but it is smart to try the TEST Stacker first. TEST Stacker is free and provides a risk-free way to be sure your system can handle the simple version before paying for the full version. Figure 4: TEST Stacker - Normal Mode (CS3) Figure 5: The TEST Stacker in Button Mode (CS3) When you re satisfied the TEST Stacker works, you should delete all StarCircleAcademy Action Sets before installing the ADVANCED STACKER+. The ADVANCED STACKER+ includes everything the TEST Stacker does and more. The TEST Stacker has 4 actions: Do This First, LIGHTEN Mode, ADDITIVE mode and Bump Up Stars. Read about how to use each one in the Operations section below. Operations
Open the Actions Window For someoperations you will need to have the Actions window visible. See Figure 1: The Photoshop Actions Window (CS3) for how to make the action window visible. The hot key Alt-F9 on a PC or Option-F9 on a Mac will toggle the state of the Action window, that is if it is being displayed the hot key will turn it off, and if it is off, the hot key will make the Action Window visible. If you don't need the action window, it's best to keep it closed as operations will run faster. Bump Up Stars The simplest place to start is with the Bump Up Stars action. Start with an image already loaded. Open the Actions Window, select the Bump Up Stars in either the TEST Stacker set or the ADVANCED STACKER+ The Bump Action makes the stars more noticeable by duplicating the image several times and nudging each duplicated layer. How it works is described on the BLOG here. Figure 6: Running "Bump Up" After selecting Bump Up from the Action Set and clicking the Play Button the image changes to this. See how much more noticeable the stars are? Perhaps TOO noticeable.
Figure 7: After Bump Up... notice the extra layers If the result is acceptable, you are done. Save the image and declare victory. However the Bump Up action may create artifacts like blurry text. Or, in this example the trees in the foreground seem to be lost, the watermark is exaggerated and the stars are a bit overdone. The good news is this is easy to fix. After the Bump Up finishes brush on the Bump Group mask in the areas you want to remove the effect, OR turn off some of the Bump layers, or both. If you don t like the effect at all, you can delete the layer group by right clicking and selecting Delete Group and then Group and Contents. Or turn off all of the Bump layers by clicking the eye on the Bump Group. Figure 8: Deleting a Layer Group If you run the Bump Up action more than once without first Flattening or merging the layers you will get an error Make Not Available or similar.multiple runs do not improve the results, however. Punch Up Stars (AS+) Another way to brighten your stars is using the Punch Up Stars method. This action step does two things: it creates a mask of only your stars, and then it creates a curve layer to brighten those stars. You can apply one or both
enhancements. A video demonstrating the Punch Up Stars can be found here: https://vimeo.com/65014346 Check at time 5:27.
Figure 9: Punch Up Stars List Mode View
Figure 10: Punch Up Stars - Button Mode View
All you need to have is an image loaded. Almost any image will do. To run the action click the button in button mode or select the action then click the Play icon at the bottom of the action window. After the first step completes, you ll get this menu: If you don t notice any odd artifacts that need correcting, click Continue. However if you notice any overbrightening of a part of the image you don t want brightened, click Stop. After clicking Stop, paint with a 100% black brush right on the StarMask layer which is selected by default. Here is an example of painting with black over the TEST Stacker watermark which now has artifacts. Notice how the overbright glow has been eliminated
When you click Stop while using the Punch Up Stars button, the button becomes deep red to indicate that you have stopped in the middle of the operation. By clicking the button again, it will finish the action you stopped. If you are not using button mode, the Action window will look like this You can continue the operation by clicking the tiny play button here in green at the bottom of the Action window because the cursor is hovering over it. We recommend continuing because you can get a bit more (or less) punch by going farther. You may adjust the amount of star brightening by turning on or off the layers (click the eye ), adjusting their opacity, or even by duplicating either of the layers using Ctl-J (or Command-J). Running the action more than once is possible, but not recommended. Deleting an Action Set Click an action set to select it. Then click the pull-down at the top of the actions window.
If you ve saved the actions you can reinstall them if you delete them inadvertently. Stacking Operations There are two kinds of stacking operations: Stack and Stack with Intermediates. In each case the action ingests a series of files. You specify where those files come from. The action loads each file one-at-a-time and performs some image magic on it. The action then ingests the next file, and so on until all files have been handled. The difference between the with Intermediates and other stacking modes is that when intermediates are in play, a new file is created each time a file is operated on. Just as you can specify where files are taken from, you can also specify where the intermediate files should be written. The difference between a stack, like LIGHTEN Mode, and a Stack with Intermediates mode (like Comet Mode with Intermediates) is simple: the with intermediate mode saves an image at each step where the regular stack operation accumulates the result in a single document. Before doing anything with the StarCircleAcademy Stacking action, it s a good idea to first close all files you may have open. File Types The stacking operations work on any files that Photoshop is able to open, including TIF, JPG, RAW, PSD, PNG, and more. This is one way that the stacking action is more versatile than any other single-solution stacking program: it takes advantage of the wide range of files that Photoshop can handle. Though it is unusual to do so, the stacking action can even handle different file types in one operation. The stacking operations can even handle files of different SIZES and color depth though this is not recommended because the result may be unpredictable. The action has been tested extensively with RGB images ranging in size from several hundred pixels to 8000 pixels and bit depths of 8 to 32 bits. The larger the files, the longer the process takes per file. About RAW Files (CR2, NEF, etc) As noted, the Advance Stacker Plus can operate on any RAW files that the Adobe Camera RAW component can open. Operations can be performed using completely unmessed with RAW files, or RAW files that have been adjusted using the ACR utility. For best results using RAW images, we recommend that you either use un-editted raw files, or a set of files in which all the adjustments applied are the same. Furthermore, when stacking RAW files into Star Trails, the best results can be achieved by using files in Linear mode.
Do This First When stacking a set of files, it is good to start with the Do This First step. TheFirst step prepares a new document with all of the needed layers and controls.
TROUBLE SHOOTING Photoshop is a big behemoth of a program and there are lots of changes from one version of Photoshop to the next. Despite this we ve worked very hard to keep the action as compatible with every version of Photoshop that we have available to test. Unfortunately, there are some things that change the behavior of the stacking action in less than obvious ways. For example, if you are trying to stack files that are not the same size and usually that is an accident then the behavior will depend on three things: 1. What size image is loaded first the Load This First creates a canvas of the size of the first image. 2. What settings you have in Preferences (Edit -> Preferences) 3. The type of raw file (if any) that you have. Photoshop isn t always smart enough to pick the latest version of ACR so if you have more than one version of Photoshop loaded, it may fail to use a newer version of ACR and skip files. Figure 11: Edit -> Preferences (CS3) We recommend using the option Resize Image During Paste/Place for most cases especially when using watermarks. Button Mode and Color Coding Actions can be viewed in more than one mode. In addition to the regular list view, there is a Button Mode. Turn Button Mode off for most operations. Button mode is not recommended because most of the actions should be executed from File -> Automate Batch. Items that can be run in button mode are color coded Green. The Yellow items should be run from File -> Automate -> Batch. The Graybackground means the item should not be run directly. And Red indicates instructions or actions that do not perform any usable behavior. Figure 12: Button Mode (CS6)
Figure 13: Typical Error Messages If you forget to run the Do This First step, you may get an error like the above. document StackResult is not currently available. or "First and Last" is not currently available. Automate -> Batch is not selectable If you notice that File -> Automate -> Batch is greyed out, it means that Photoshop doesn t have any actions installed.
Figure 14: Automate Batch is Greyed out Install an action to fix this problem. Installation Check - Trouble Shooting Guide Here is a partial list of the errors you may encounter: Problem Description Solution JavaScript code was missing One or more of the Scripts has not been installed. Either install the script(s) or disable their use. The object "action "Set Layer Names to Document Name" of set "StarCircleStacker Customizations"" is One of the action files has not been loaded, or the action file that has been loaded is old. Load the "StarCircleStacker Customization" action file into Photoshop. not currently available. The object "layer "JustATest.jpg"" is not currently available One of the Scripts has not been loaded properly, or the feature has been disabled. Load the scripts (.jsx) files into the proper location(s), stop then restart Photoshop. If disabled accidentally, re-enable the feature. The object "layer "Background- One of the scripts has not been Load the scripts (.jsx) files into the
Foreground.jpg" is not currently available The object "action "Version 14 All In One Instructions" of set "StarCircleAcademy All in One Stacker v14"" is not currently available loaded properly. The All in one stacker action is not loaded. proper location(s), stop then restart Photoshop. If disabled accidentally, re-enable the feature. If you are not using this feature, no action is needed. If however you want to use the All In One Stacker, please load the action into Photoshop. To Disable File Naming Features (Optional) The file and layer renaming features are helpful for keeping track of files that are used to create stacks - but these features are optional. If for some reason you are having trouble making these features work, you can disable them as shown below. Expand the "Customizations" action and click to remove the checks:
References StarCircleAcademy Store (to purchase ADVANCED STACKER+) http://store.starcircleacademy.com Keeping Up To Date Join our mailing list. Pick what you want to hear about. http://starcircleacademy.com/subscribe Understanding Stacking Creating Star Trails All About Star Trails http://starcircleacademy.com/startrails Advanced Tricks for Creating Star Trails: http://starcircleacademy.com/2012/10/advanced-star-trail-tricks Web Based Instruction (Star Trails Webinar): http://events.starcircleacademy.com/events/97485862 Online Video: Creating Star Trails: http://starcircleacademy.com/videos Instructions TEST Stacker: http://starcircleacademy.com/teststacker ADVANCED STACKER+http://AdvancedStackerPlus.com Instructional Videos (on Vimeo) Obtaining and Downloading the Advanced or TEST Stacker: https://vimeo.com/64961277 Getting Started, Simple Stacking: https://vimeo.com/64967278 Using Intermediates, Punch Up Stars, and Customizations: https://vimeo.com/65014346 Example Time Lapse Created Using the Advanced Stacker CARMA https://vimeo.com/65524033 Using Comets and an Industrial Night scene: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steventheamusing/8329077824 Several stacking actions: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steventheamusing/8280866106 Stacking is used for the Credits here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steventheamusing/8283290496