repro M42

[raymo]

Repro of 47 x 30secs @ ISO 400 taken about a year ago.
Still only DSS except for a little sharpen and downsize in PS7.
raymo

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Very nice colours Ray.

[raymo]

Thanks Kevin. I'm struggling to make sense of the new PS and the book and DVD for same. I'm chuffed that I've had my first positive comment on one of my images on Astrobin.
raymo

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

That's very nice Ray. Background look black clipped to me though, you are losing some detail that would otherwise be revealed.

[Flugel88 (Michael)]

Well done Raymo nice M42 colours and you even managed not to blow out the core.

[raymo]

Thanks Cam and Michael. The black clipping is the result of my varied efforts to subdue the blue nebulosity at the left of the main nebula. It comes down from the top left in a seemingly unnaturally straight line
with a kink in it half way down, like a very shallow angled arrow head.
raymo

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

My biggest processing challenges are battling vignetting and colour gradients to get an even neutral colour background. Stretching only takes a few minutes but it's those gradients and colour balance that take ages.

[raymo]

My biggest problem is that I cannot get my head around layers and suchlike, in order to mix short and longer subs to avoid burning out highlights, and the cropping tool in my newly subscribed to PS is much harder to use than the one in my ancient PS7. So far I'm not particularly impressed with Creative Cloud; it takes far longer to open than PS7, and I don't seem to have much use for Lightroom which came with it.
raymo

[raymo]

Is this better?
raymo

[ralph1]

Yes, it looks much better. More natural looking and more detailed.