Ok, I've added some more data and reprocessed the image, this time using both PI and PS. Not totally happy with it now, but I think it's an improvement. Small version attached (see original post) doesn't look quite as good, I'd recommend the large version on Astrobin (same link in the original post).
It's good data Lee, but your original version was closer to the mark IMO (notwithstanding extra data). Your new version (right hand image below) shows harsher transitions in the core and less faint nebulosity. I roughly doctored your original version to illustrate - see the left hand image below:
Colour balanced - 12% more shadow cyan, 7% more midtone green and a 10% more highlight blue
It's good data Lee, but your original version was closer to the mark IMO (notwithstanding extra data). Your new version (right hand image below) shows harsher transitions in the core and less faint nebulosity. I roughly doctored your original version to illustrate - see the left hand image below:
Colour balanced - 12% more shadow cyan, 7% more midtone green and a 10% more highlight blue
A masked curve to liven up the neb
A masked curve to dim the background sky
An overall curve to brighten everything
Sorry, I'll shut up now!
Cheers,
Marcus
Thanks for taking the time, Marcus, I appreciate it. I felt the original image was too flat, thanks to the usage of masked stretch, so I wanted a bit more contrast in it. But you're right, I lost background nebulosity.
I've done yet another version. This time I've used a combined histogram transformation with masked stretch, then added HDRMT and local histogram equalization. The colour is probably still wrong, and it might be over baked for some people's taste, but on the flip side, there's more contrast and more background nebulosity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
Yes that looks good. I would only add a little more yellow to the blues to make them bluish.
Greg.
Cheers Greg!
Last edited by codemonkey; 06-08-2016 at 01:12 PM.
Really coming along nicely Lee, much nicer than some of the earlier renditions.
It looks like the brightest stars haven't been properly masked, that's what causes the rings in the middle of them. Most notably with HDR as the core is dimmed
Really coming along nicely Lee, much nicer than some of the earlier renditions.
It looks like the brightest stars haven't been properly masked, that's what causes the rings in the middle of them. Most notably with HDR as the core is dimmed
Cheers Colin Yeah I'm still not happy with it hah. I've learned some new tricks in processing this one though, so that's something.
I usually use chrominance noise reduction with LRGBCombination which cleans up those cores for me, but it tends to create some other artefacts that I don't like. Of course I could fix it with other methods, but I was being lazy :p
I think it still needs another processing job or two, but I'm going to let it rest for a bit.
I sometimes use a very low pass Chrominance Noise Reduction (2,1 going down) in narrowband images as all those tiny stars are a nightmare to pick up with a star mask. I find it is sometimes easier to get a decent star mask handling on the super bright stars while in linear data because there is such a difference between bright and not bright. I find that sometimes the bright stars are not as well masked as they can be, this leads to artefacts on bright stars when doing any kind of dynamic range compression (HDR/LHE).
I have since started making ranged star masks and using PixelMath to make a master star mask. The top field (cannot remember what it is off hand, has a default of 5) I make a mask at either 2,5&8 or 2,4,6&8. I usually keep the fields below for scale masking at 1,1,1 (large small and compensation). With PixelMath I'll use Max(smallmask,mediummask,...). If any of the brightest stars look a bit soft I'll either create an even bigger scaled mask (10) and see if that helps but at this stage it sometimes starts picking up large scale nebulosity. Failing that, I'll put $T*2 into PixelMath and hit it on the large scale masks to give it a better representation on the brighter stars.
Creating a strong star mask ends up being on of the first things I do as I have found so many processes effect the stars!
Looks pretty good to me Lee. The reflection nebulosity seems to be the right colour and the star colours are good. It's clear I'm going to have to learn pixinsight properly.
I sometimes use a very low pass Chrominance Noise Reduction (2,1 going down) in narrowband images as all those tiny stars are a nightmare to pick up with a star mask. I find it is sometimes easier to get a decent star mask handling on the super bright stars while in linear data because there is such a difference between bright and not bright. I find that sometimes the bright stars are not as well masked as they can be, this leads to artefacts on bright stars when doing any kind of dynamic range compression (HDR/LHE).
I have since started making ranged star masks and using PixelMath to make a master star mask. The top field (cannot remember what it is off hand, has a default of 5) I make a mask at either 2,5&8 or 2,4,6&8. I usually keep the fields below for scale masking at 1,1,1 (large small and compensation). With PixelMath I'll use Max(smallmask,mediummask,...). If any of the brightest stars look a bit soft I'll either create an even bigger scaled mask (10) and see if that helps but at this stage it sometimes starts picking up large scale nebulosity. Failing that, I'll put $T*2 into PixelMath and hit it on the large scale masks to give it a better representation on the brighter stars.
Creating a strong star mask ends up being on of the first things I do as I have found so many processes effect the stars!
Solid advice there, thanks Colin :-) The field is the "scale" field. I've been going up to 12 to get some of the really big stars, but yeah, I'm frequently lazy when it comes to protecting my stars :p
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevec35
Looks pretty good to me Lee. The reflection nebulosity seems to be the right colour and the star colours are good. It's clear I'm going to have to learn pixinsight properly.
Cheers
Steve
Thanks Steve! I was not a PI fan at first... but recently I tried to play with something in Photoshop and honestly, it feels so primitive now. There's a big learning curve, but it's worth it I think.
