We clearly have a philosophical difference. I stick to the sky as it was when I took the shot (both in daytime shots and I have no choice in night sky shots as the tracker blurs my foreground — but it’s still the sky/ground as it was). I’ve seen photographers stick the Milky Way in the north sky. Artistically good, but not a reflection of reality. Aaaand sometimes you get a sky that’s amazing. Yes it did look just like this for about 40 seconds. I was tempted to slap on a ND6 to smooth the water but I didn’t have time. The only changes I’ve made were to brush out the oil spots (D600 fail) on the sensor. (on tripod, 20mm 1/2.8 D, D600, exposure stacked — if that matters to anyone.)

Also, I’ve been looking at PS alternatives. I mostly use DxO PhotoLab, but I need a layer editor for things like night sky replacement. I’ve been trialing Affinity Photo. So far, not counting raw conversion and noise reduction, it’s better than ‘all the others’, and a tie with PS CS6. I re-did this exposure stack with it. At a normal price of US$49 (and Black Friday coming) I’d recommend it to any PS users getting the Adobe subscription blues.