These are straight answers, without the marketing spin. If something isn't covered here, reach out. You'll get the person who made the tool, not a support queue.
Three pieces working as one: a Photoshop panel (a UXP plugin, the control surface), a local engine that does the heavy stacking and AI work on your own machine, and a Lightroom Classic plugin that sends frames to stacking and brings results back into your catalog. You work entirely inside the apps you already use. It is not a standalone app you run on its own.
No. The panel stacks straight from RAW files on disk, or from layers already open in Photoshop. The Lightroom plugin is the convenient on-ramp if Lightroom Classic is where your nights live: select frames, choose Stack in NightScape, and the stacked base image comes back into your catalog automatically.
The panel's tabs: Stack (calibrated RAW stacking with an editable sky mask, or stacking from open layers), Prepare (White Balance, Defringe, and Recipes), and Stars (AI Star Removal with a separate Star Map layer, plus Declutter star reduction with Constellation Guard). Beyond the tabs: the Foreground Sky Merge and Star Trails in five looks. Everything a nightscape needs, in one tool inside Photoshop.
No, on purpose. Stacking real frames is the noise reduction: twenty measured exposures beat an AI's guess about one. If you want a cleaner image, stack more light.
They come back as a layer. Star Removal delivers a starless layer plus a separate Star Map layer (Linear Dodge), so the stars remain a first-class, editable ingredient rather than gone forever.
Yes. Select a night of ground-fixed frames (from Lightroom or right in the panel) and pick a look: Solid, Comet, Meteor, Fade, or Vortex. The engine builds sequence-scaled trails with gap filling and star-point heads over a clean, noise-rejected foreground, and handles hundreds of full-resolution RAWs in minutes. One guardrail: trails need a fixed camera, so the engine politely refuses tracker-aligned frames and tells you why.
macOS and Windows, with Photoshop 2023 (v24.0) or newer and Lightroom Classic. The AI models run locally as ONNX models (Core ML accelerated on Apple Silicon Macs).
The calibrated stacker reads .arw · .cr2 · .cr3 · .nef · .dng · .orf · .raf · .rw2 · .pef · .srw, plus TIFF. If your camera writes one of those, you're covered.
Select a night's RAWs (lights and darks together, any order) and choose Stack in NightScape from Plug-in Extras. The engine auto-detects lights versus darks from actual sensor brightness, shows a two-column review dialog with thumbnails, stages your files without copying them (read-only hard links on the same volume), stacks, then saves the base image next to your sources, imports it into your catalog stacked with its frames, and opens it in Photoshop. No "Synchronize Folder," ever.
A clean 16-bit linear ProPhoto document, developed directly from your RAW files: scene-referred, wide gamut, with nothing baked in. Every tool works from it, which is why white balance, light-pollution math, and grading all behave correctly. One-click tools tend to hand you a finished-looking file with color and contrast already decided; NightScape Lab keeps those decisions yours.
Fix it yourself, in Photoshop. The mask arrives as a real layer on the stacked document (hidden by default). Paint it pure black and white and click Restack with edited mask: the engine re-runs the entire calibrated stack with your correction, as many times as you like. You can also preview and edit the mask before a stack from disk.
That's the gate, and it's protecting you. Lab tools only operate on genuine, scene-linear NightScape base images; every result carries an embedded signature the panel verifies. It prevents accidentally double-processing an already-finished JPEG. A clear override exists when you know what you're doing.
The panel checks the official release feed and shows a download banner when a new version ships. Updating is just re-running the installer.
$129, one time. Buy once, own forever, with free updates within the version you buy. No subscription, ever.
No free trial. The demos and before/after proof are the trial. We'd rather show you exactly what it does than gate a time-limited download. When you're convinced, buy it and it's yours. And every purchase is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there's no risk in finding out.
Yes. Every purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If NightScape Lab isn't for you, email hello@nightscapestacker.com within 30 days for a full refund, no questions asked.
A simple license key with seat management: enter it once in the panel. Only the license check goes online; your images never do.
Because that's how we'd want to buy it. Comparable plugin bundles run higher, sell the darkroom in pieces, and still leave you without a stacker, and some competitors have moved subscription-only. One price for the whole workflow felt like the honest deal.
Nowhere. All processing is 100% local: the engine runs on your machine and your images never leave your computer. No cloud, no upload, no account required to process. The bundled AI models run locally too. Even Lightroom staging uses read-only hard links, so your originals are untouched by construction.
Anonymous error and usage reporting exists, but it's optional, off by default, and asked once. It never includes images, file names, or settings, and there's a permanent toggle in Preferences.
It's a small operation, so you reach the maker directly. Email hello@nightscapestacker.com or use the support page. One click in Preferences → Diagnostics copies the panel's version-stamped activity log to your clipboard, ready to paste into your email.
One darkroom to stack, finish, and trail your nightscapes. Buy once, own forever.