Very nice work. Does look natural. Think the data could be stretched a little more, but you don't want to lose the subtle hues so its a tough call. Good job.
Great colours Bert. Not surprised now that this area always looks grainy in the dark spots. Look at the amount of red stuff everywhere. It's subtle but it's all over the place.
Thanks jjjenettie for your careful consideration of the colour. It is a scientific fact that colour vision is carried on the X chromosome. Us blokes are at a disadvantage with subtle colour as human females can discern far more or finer colour differences than us blokes because they have two X chromosomes. Even with my limited senses I bow to your better colour sensitivity. I hope I got it near 'correct' whatever that is.
Jase it is very tempting to fiddle with curves etc with HDR. It only ends up losing dynamic range. I want to show from the brightest star to the faint nebulous bits and faint stars that pepper this galaxy. The trouble with our monitors and/or prints is they have at best eight bits of dynamic range. Some monitors only have six bits!
You are correct marc the 'graininess' usually is noise modulating the faint stuff so most people suppress it.
Not surprised now that this area always looks grainy in the dark spots. Look at the amount of red stuff everywhere. It's subtle but it's all over the place.
