Two dockable panels. One local engine. Your Photoshop.
NightScape Lab holds the per-image finishing tools — docked by your Layers, where that work happens. NightScape Stacker turns a folder of lights and darks into a clean linear master, in the background, while you keep editing. Different jobs on different clocks, so they’re different panels.
30-day money-back guarantee · one-time purchase · Photoshop on Windows & macOS
Panel 1 · NightScape Lab — dock it by your Layers
The finishing tools, numbered in the order that works.
White Balance, then Light Pollution, then Stars, then Defringe — the panel teaches the nightscape order without a manual. Apply lives inside each tool, next to the controls it runs, and a “✓ 2m ago” breadcrumb answers “did I already white-balance this one?” during a long edit.
Edit — recommended order
Idle · last: Star Map added · Stacking is in the NightScape Stacker panel ▸
Draft — 3 steps
Saved recipes
Idle · recipes run the tools in order, with your settings.
White Balance
Neutralizes the sky’s colour cast, sampled from the detected sky — not from a guess. On a correctly tagged linear master, it just works; this is usually the first thirty seconds of the edit.
Light Pollution
Removes the sky’s colour gradient and light-pollution glow while leaving the Milky Way’s own structure alone. The horizon glow goes; the dust lanes stay.
Stars — remove or reduce
Remove delivers a starless layer plus a hidden Star Map layer, so you can process the sky and the stars separately and recombine on your terms. Reduce shrinks star prominence in place. Optional denoise on the starless layer, with separate luminance and colour-noise strength.
Defringe
Removes purple fringes and green casts around stars — star cores are protected, so tight stars stay tight. Each correction has its own strength control.
Recipes
Every tool has “＋ Add to recipe” — assemble a sequence with your settings, name it, and run it on the next image in one click. You don’t have to run a tool to author a step. Your finishing, repeatable.
Real screenshot: NightScape Lab docked in Photoshop
The shipped Panel 1 docked beside the Layers panel, a real nightscape open on the canvas, one tool expanded. Full Photoshop window, dark UI, ~2600px wide. Replaces the mockup rendering above once the build lands.
Panels shown from the approved design (ERI-1959), not final shipped pixels.
Why stacking gets its own panel
A white balance takes a second. A calibrated stack takes minutes. Putting them in one surface means a progress bar sitting on top of the tools you want to use — so the Stacker is its own dockable panel. Point it at your frames, start the run, and go back to editing. When the master is ready, “Start editing →” hands it straight to the Lab panel — the one designed moment between the two surfaces.
Panel 2 · NightScape Stacker — dock it, run it, collapse it
Calibrated RAW stacking, without leaving Photoshop.
Two ways in. Quick (the From open layers tab) stacks the layers you already have open — fast, no calibration. Calibrated RAW (the From RAW files tab) is the flagship: point it at your lights and darks and it calibrates, aligns, and integrates from the original RAW data — dark subtraction happens on the Bayer mosaic, before demosaic, where it’s scientifically correct.
Deliver result
Saves a 16-bit TIFF beside your lights, then opens it.
⧉ Stack 23 lights + 11 darksReady.
✓ Read 23 frames
✓ Dark-calibrated (11 darks)
✓ Aligned
● Integrating (κσ) · 4:12
Keep editing in Photoshop — this runs in the background.
Calibrated at the sensor
Pre-demosaic Bayer dark subtraction removes hot pixels and amp glow at the sensor level. Post-demosaic RGB subtraction — the common shortcut — leaves coloured hot-pixel halos.
The button says what it does
Slot cards show exactly what you’ve selected — “23 files · IMG_4021–4043 · CR3” — and the button says exactly what a click commits you to. No untitled surprises.
Long jobs feel alive
A stage checklist, a ticking elapsed timer, and a saved, named master that opens when it’s done — delivery is chosen before the run, not after.
Real screenshot: a stack running while Photoshop stays usable
The shipped Panel 2 mid-run (checklist + elapsed timer visible) with an unrelated document actively being edited on the canvas — the “background stacking” proof in one frame. Full Photoshop window, ~2600px wide.
Panels shown from the approved design (ERI-1959), not final shipped pixels.
One local engine, working for both panels.
The panels are the interface; the work happens in a local Python engine installed alongside them. It runs beside Photoshop, not inside its process — which is why a five-minute stack never freezes your brushes, and why the heavy math isn’t limited to what a plugin sandbox allows.
One engine, one job at a time. While a run is going, both panels lock — a single source of truth, no queued surprises — but Photoshop itself stays yours. Your frames never leave your machine. The only network use is license activation and update checks — stacking and every tool runs fully offline.
Engine specs and supported RAW formats: system requirements.
What comes out: a linear master, done right.
Everything above exists to hand you one file — the stack before anyone’s taste is applied.
It looks flat on purpose — it’s the honest data. You white-balance it and develop it exactly the way you would a RAW file, with your own hand on every step. Why the file format is the decisive difference →
Recipes: your finishing, repeatable
Dial in a sequence once — WB, light pollution, a 60% star reduce with denoise — save it, and run it on every image from that shoot. Recipes are included with both the trial and the license; there’s no tier that withholds them.
License & activation
$99 once via Polar, license key by email, paste it into either panel — the engine validates it. Two machine activations, works offline with a grace period. The trial is the same download. [trial & activation details per ERI-1964]
Dock them tonight.
The free trial is the full pair of panels plus the engine — run it on your own lights and darks.
30-day money-back guarantee. Photoshop (Windows & macOS) · one-time purchase · 2 activations.