From your photos to a nightscape stack.

Choose one night, one view.

Use 3–30 consecutive frames from a fixed tripod, with the same framing, focal length, exposure, and white balance. Start with 5–10 frames and a simple horizon. Exclude camera shake, missed focus, and heavy cloud before stacking.

The beta supports up to 32 megapixels per frame. Large images need substantial memory and local working space. Tracked skies, panoramas, fisheye workflows, mixed exposures, and separate foreground exposures are outside this version.

Prepare consistent sRGB files.

JPEG and PNG are accepted as 8-bit sources. For more editing latitude, export single-page, three-channel, 16-bit RGB TIFFs with a standard embedded sRGB profile. Uncompressed and supported ZIP-compressed strip TIFFs are accepted. RAW, CMYK, grayscale, alpha-channel, tiled, and unsupported TIFF variants may be rejected with an explanation.

In Lightroom, synchronize preparation across the sequence: white balance, exposure, lens correction, crop, and orientation. Export TIFF, sRGB, 16 bits per channel, with ZIP or no compression. Keep matching dimensions, no more than 32 megapixels per file. Leave resizing off if already within that limit; otherwise resize every frame identically. Turn off output sharpening and watermarking for an initial test. Keep the originals.

Unsupported embedded color profiles are rejected rather than relabeled. Untagged 8-bit JPEG/PNG files are interpreted as sRGB with a visible warning; their original color space cannot be verified. A 16-bit export from an 8-bit source retains an 8-bit source's limits.

Keep the ground out of the sky.

Open the stacker and choose your files. Pick a reference with a sharp foreground. Use Horizon mode to click along the boundary from left to right, then select Apply sky. Refine with Sky brush and Eraser. The overlay marks the sky that can be aligned and stacked.

Keep ridges, ground, trees, and branches outside the sky mask. Tiny gaps between leaves may be better left as reference-frame pixels. There is no automatic fine-branch mask in this beta.

Save a project to keep the mask, reference, frame selection, and settings. The project does not contain photographs. Reopen it alongside the matching original files; renamed or edited files may not match.

Stack, save, then finish the edit.

Start the stack. The worker reads one frame at a time, aligns stars, and averages accepted sky samples in linear light. Frames that fail checks are excluded. At least three frames including the reference must succeed.

This version uses linear averaging. It does not automatically reject moving clouds, satellite trails, aircraft trails, or other transient objects. Exclude affected frames before stacking.

The default foreground is taken from the reference; it is not stacked or denoised. Near unsupported image edges and the sky boundary, the engine conservatively retains reference pixels. This can reduce the noise improvement in those areas.

Select Download TIFF — free during beta to save the 16-bit sRGB TIFF for Lightroom or your preferred editor. You can also save the sky mask and processing report. Save the project before closing if you want to retry without redrawing the mask.

Cancel keeps the current selection and mask so you can retry. Download links are created on your device; your image is not uploaded for delivery.

Look beyond the center.

The normal comparison preview is downsampled. Use the actual-pixel inspector to check the center, all four corners, and horizon. Check the exported TIFF in your editor too.

• Look for doubled stars, stretched points, or one corner worse than the others.
• Look for bright seams, ghosted ground, or stars dragged across branches.
• Check rejected-frame reasons and unvalidated regions in the report. A low global residual does not guarantee every corner is correct.
• Check color and profile in the exported TIFF before applying strong contrast.

If the first pass needs work.

Frames fail alignment.

Try a sharper reference, fewer frames, a shorter sequence, and a mask with enough clear sky. Do not include clouds or ground to increase the star count.

A corner has doubled stars.

Reduce the time span and inspect again. Severe lens distortion or weak star coverage may leave the sequence unsuitable.

A seam follows the ridge.

Zoom in to refine the preview-resolution mask, excluding foreground detail, then inspect the exported result. Reference blending near the boundary can reduce the visible noise improvement.

The browser runs out of resources.

Close other large tabs, try fewer or smaller files, and free local storage. Processing large images requires more memory than their compressed file sizes suggest.

A color profile is rejected.

Convert and re-export a matching sRGB sequence from your originals. Changing a profile label or deleting it is not a color conversion.

The purchase status is pending.

Do not pay again. Keep the tab open and check status, or contact support with the Paddle receipt. Frontend checkout completion alone does not unlock a license.

Need help?

Email jensenwonderful@gmail.com with your browser version, file format, image dimensions, and processing report. Original photos are not needed in the first message.