Retrieving the stellar content in distant starbursts

In starburst galaxies, the light emitted by the young and massive stars dominates the photon budget along most of the SED and hides the old and intermediate stellar populations. The fraction of old stars and the stellar mass are systematically underestimated by current methods (Wuyts et al. (2009)). We have implemented a new method to retrieve stellar masses and stellar populations in distant galaxies from photometry and spectral features. The method uses a complex SFH description and a new constraint has been introduced: the star-formation rate (SFR).