DeepSkyStacker producing grey/colourless images

[iceman (Mike)]

Using mostly default parameters, DSS has a habit of producing nearly greyscale images.

Is there some setting which I should be using so it gets the colour right without having to boost the saturation up really high to get the colour back?

[mrsnipey]

Watching with interest. This happens to me all the time.

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

i usually find that the colour comes back in PS-but that's not what you are asking is it? you want the colour to appear in the stacked image in DSS?

[Enrique]

Mike:

I have tried the following two recommendations from DSS (these recommendations appear when you press the “recommended…” command and are based on the pictures you are processing)

“If the images look to gray: use per channel background calibration.

If the colour balance is too hard to fix in post processing: use RGB background calibration”

I am using the second one because I want to get the final colours in post processing.

Enrique

[spearo (Frank)]

Mike,
I've used both of Enrique's recommendations, they always turn out quite Gray.
I used to boost the saturation to 20 to fix it but recentlyI've been boosting the sat in PS at about 80 or so just before it starts to distort data

no idea why it's like that
frank

[Tandum (Robin)]

I believe this may be the result of a gama stretch of the final image. Doing a gama stretch in Maxim produces a similar grey image on some images. I've found simply bringing up the black point in PS levels sorts it out.

[AlexN]

Mike - This happened to me a week or so ago....

Under settings on the left hand panel of the main window, there should be 'RAW/FITS settings. Click that, then go to the FITS tab, and make sure the following is checked
FITS Files are RAW images created by a DSLR or Color CCD.
Also make sure you've selected Canon EOS 350D from the drop down box under that.

Made all the difference in my images.

[iceman (Mike)]

I'll have to have a go at these settings, thanks guys.

[Tandum (Robin)]

I got a grey one the other day processing M8 from my new gear and levels didn't fix it. It was 'set black point to zero'. I flicked that the other way, can't remember on or off and the thing was red as a sunburn when done

I've been using maxim lately and they are processing uniformly, although you have to manually change each sub to colour before a combine which is a pain. Colour all would be nice.

[g__day (Matthew)]

Yes I am having a lot of challenges with the issue of grey pictures too. I have ticked everything I imagined should be (and experimented) try to add

2 * 10 minute shots of the eagle nebulae
4 dark frames
12 bias shots
4 flat frames

The detail and colours I hoped would leap out hasn't happened yet - to put it mildly!

Still investigating how to drive this better. I think MaximDL is going to become an increasingly important piece of my image processing suite!

[Lester]

Its been many months since I have done any DSO imaging.

I found the best for me was to convert my RAW images into TIFF and then they came out of DSS much brighter.