Ive been perusing through images that ive downloaded from NASA APOD,fantastic images one and all, ...... however one thing struck me, and you can verify this for yourself.... how many images have soft natural colours........NONE !!
Now ive critisized others for having too rich a saturation prefering the soft natural tones, yet the images we drool over are bright and colourfull...... go figure ( i might owe an apology or two)
With this in mind ive reprocessed this image, yep ive thrown everything at it, deconvolution, convolution, curves, levels, saturation, individual colour luminances,plus any other button that looked interesting.
So....... what do you reckon. and please be honest if you think its garbage say so i will not be offended, or do you reckon this is the way to go?
ive put up the original i posted a while back so you can compare..........
Great to see you going out on a limb and experimenting Alchemy, well done!
I think that Hubble shots get away with false colour renderings because of the incredible data they have to work with - and they are showing stuff we've never really seen before. We're all used to the styles and scales of earthbound, amateur astro photographs, and I don't personally think the 'lairy' colour schemes work well with limited and familiar data. But hey Alchemy, it's a poll so it will be interesting to see the results!
Colour… is always a subjective topic in astrophotography and most of the time it comes down to personal taste or aesthetics. I guess the question is do we have a baseline to judge against? Do the images on APOD define this? What is the definition of true colour and is it technically possible to achieve? Would we have a different perspective with narrowband? I could go on and on…
Before I (we) vote, are we simply making an analysis on colour only or the images in their entirety? Also would it be possible to share your goals for each of the images. i.e. maximise colour saturation in the shadows while not clipping the highlights, pushing the colours in the midtones while dulling the highlights with curves etc. Or was this a case of "wing it" and see what happens?
Colour… is always a subjective topic in astrophotography and most of the time it comes down to personal taste or aesthetics. I guess the question is do we have a baseline to judge against? Do the images on APOD define this? What is the definition of true colour and is it technically possible to achieve? Would we have a different perspective with narrowband? I could go on and on…
Before I (we) vote, are we simply making an analysis on colour only or the images in their entirety? Also would it be possible to share your goals for each of the images. i.e. maximise colour saturation in the shadows while not clipping the highlights, pushing the colours in the midtones while dulling the highlights with curves etc. Or was this a case of "wing it" and see what happens?
Theres a lot of considerations there jase...
firstly having been only a short time at IIS ive found out some prefer images one way others differently, i guess that as long as the image is sharp then the rest of the constraints are personal. from personal experience we all tinker with our images and nobody doesnt add colour saturation to some degree,
for me its detail detail detail, i want to see the intricate knots in the nebulosity i want to see the tips of the galaxy arms BUT i dont like noisy images, so i settle for less pushing of the image at the sacrifice of detail....
i remember reading with regards to landscape photography which i used to be keen on, that we in general remember a place differently to whats recorded on film and hence we bump it up to meet our expectations/ memories.
So does the APOD image of the day define colour.... hmmm what colour is space really probably extremely bland after all looking through a 12 inch scope can i see any colour in nebulas etc ... Barely. Narrowband is another situation certainly becoming more common as the detail captured is considerable as no doubt you would attest. Are we imitating what is considered "fashionable" .... possibly. What is not in doubt is that those images are considered the best by those judging them..... Why..... i guess thats what im exploring here.
So before you vote.... well i guess i just want a raw quick opinion, your gut feeling, generally we see something and although we subconsciuosly analyze it, generally we can look and have an opinion. (if you dont publicly want to commit one way or the other you can vote as its anonymous)
As for my goals well i just wanted to extract the most detail possible, i did want to imitate the colorfull images as this image already had tones in it to work on. i started with decon to sharpen it up a bit then applied a smoothing filter to reduce noise, then stretched the image, then tinkered somewhat endlessly in lightroom with the color hue , saturation and luminance, i liked some of the detail such as theres a little spiral loop at the top of the main arm and below it a bowshock curve i managed to eek out a bit more detail in the lanes. during this i manipulated the curves and levels to keep the data from clipping as much as possible all the time trying not to introduce too much noise.. i have deliberately oversaturated.... or maybee its just right whos to say
Given my expertise in the processing dept , winging it probably is more truth than fiction.
the other difficult thing is as stated by Rob K if its an unfamiliar object we have no preconcieved ideas so we accept it. id have to say all of us have an expectation of eta carinae so it makes a more interesting debate.
Last edited by Alchemy; 20-12-2007 at 10:51 PM.
Reason: puctuation to make it readable
OK, I admit it. I find your 'winged' experiment very interesting.
It does make fine detail stand out more.
Plus, who says you haven't 'winged' its true colours! We don't really know what it looks like.
Your original looks the same as all my Carina/Keyhole images and after a while, they all start to look the same. But your winged effort makes me look 'into' the image more.
Interesting, Alchemy. The thumbnail of the new version looks horrible, but the large size actually looks quite good.
I don't know that we can compare our RGB images with images from hubble taken in narrowband filters, where the strange colours tell something about the composition of the gas, eg: sodium, etc.
I don't mind it on this image, but I can't see it working for every image.
ive found out some prefer images one way others differently, i guess that as long as the image is sharp then the rest of the constraints are personal. from personal experience we all tinker with our images and nobody doesnt add colour saturation to some degree,
for me its detail detail detail, i want to see the intricate knots in the nebulosity i want to see the tips of the galaxy arms BUT i dont like noisy images, so i settle for less pushing of the image at the sacrifice of detail....
I agree. However, lets distinguish between photographic art and science. Both have their place. One advertises the other. Many more have seen D. Malin's wonderfull images than the hours of images that provided cutting edge astronomical science.
It's horses for courses. To throw in an old building trade proverb "one does the best job with the available tools and time".
If its better than your previous attemp then its the best one.
Cheers
for those whove replied thankyou for your honest answers and opinions, me personally, i probably lie in the middle, im not sure about it, im used to natural looking images, but like the frog that sits in the water as its being heated im not jumping out, the narrowband images have visual appeal, AND i did find that this type of processing could eek out otherwise hidden details.
ive put my image in amongst some good ones as a montage type thing, i have to agree with iceman, the thumbnail didnt look too flash, the montage is supposed to support my theory that we like bright images and these were ones i liked, but you judge for yourself about the rest, the voting is interesting as its quite widespread.
if the right image presents itself i reckon id try this again, not for a debate but just because it may have visual appeal.
im still interested in more opinions so feel free to post
firstly having been only a short time at IIS ive found out some prefer images one way others differently, i guess that as long as the image is sharp then the rest of the constraints are personal. from personal experience we all tinker with our images and nobody doesnt add colour saturation to some degree,
But who are you trying to please, the greater community or yourself? I’ve seen some fine images posted here and on other forums which people have not given sufficient credit/appreciation. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you are the creator of the image, you’re the one that needs to be happy with it. You need to develop your own style and experiment.
I do agree, everyone tweaks colour saturation, but to what extent this will vary. This is more prevalent in LRGB or HaRGB images where you need to balance the strong contrasting luminance data.
I like the original image (on the right), though I think you can still extract more data from this image without taking it to the extreme which you’ve done on the left. In my opinion, the image on the left has been “cooked” for too long. How far data can be stretched and saturated will depend the quality of the data. I feel certain you can reach a nirvana in between the two. But once again I reiterate my point, which one are YOU satisfied with?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alchemy
the other difficult thing is as stated by Rob K if its an unfamiliar object we have no preconcieved ideas so we accept it. id have to say all of us have an expectation of eta carinae so it makes a more interesting debate.
I disagree with this statement. It is different for those DSLR and OSC guys, but when you are imaging mono with individual filters, you can see the different intensity that the object emits through each filter. Based on this you can make an informed guess as to what the object will look like once you’ve balanced the filters. Once you’ve done a G2V star calibration based on our sun’s white light (6500k colour temp), it’s probably about as close you’d get to correct colours. So we do indeed have a baseline, no it’s not APOD, but our Sun. Though it’s important to note that specific filters will have different transmission values, in particular some cut OIII light as it sits between the blue and green filter cross over. Some take OIII narrowband and blend it in to the Blue and Green filter images by a certain percentage to compensate for this.
Colour is simply one facet of imaging. We all know the other components such as contrast, resolution etc, but one which is commonly forgotten is composition. Anyone can take an image, but framing it differently is what makes it unique. Strive to be different and you’ll make an impression.
Alchemy,
congratulations on the shots and the experimentation.
Having had a look and read the comments I think I`m with Eric and Jase on this one.
We all struggle with getting the `right`color-saturation-etc for our shots.
I tend to agree that it seems logical to expect a certain range of color in light of the fact that we can set white points which should help define the other color bands.
The I guess its a matter of how much various bands are picked up by various pieces of equipment and subsequent processing.
In my very humble opinion i think, like Jase, that the original could deliver a slightly better outcome and thus the `best`result might be more of ìn between`thing than one or the other, a bit like Eric did int the link he provides for his M42.
I too find the Hubble shots fascinating as are the ones produced terrestrially in a asimilar fashion but i tend to prefer the ones in line with your original a bit more in the end
I agree. However, lets distinguish between photographic art and science. Both have their place. One advertises the other. Many more have seen D. Malin's wonderfull images than the hours of images that provided cutting edge astronomical science.
It's horses for courses. To throw in an old building trade proverb "one does the best job with the available tools and time".
If its better than your previous attemp then its the best one.
Cheers
well said Jeff. It reminds me of a talk at the first Lostock IIS camp where the same question was asked, "does one process for scientific accuracy, or to make it "look better"?
As for the images here I think one 1/2way between would be the best. The image scale closely matches my 10 inch f5.6 newtonian too.
Scott
Jase.... who am i trying to please, probably a bit of both i guess, if it was just totally and completely to please myself i might not even post them, the image is sort of growing on me ... although if everyone looked like this i would soon get sick of it.
your view on the last section of your post.... as a dslr guy i cant really appreciate it fully as its outside my experience. Still i apreciate your comments.
Ezystyles... i checked out your post, i guess we're experimenting with the same idea to some degree, but these are my crayons (chuckle) also thanks for your honesty
Spearo.... there tends to be a feeling that the original is the preffered view, i checked the vote section though and a fair percentage seem to like it, perhaps not publicly though
Bill.... no need to be an expert here, im interested in what people think and why. thanks for your view
Ving .... i keep looking and think yes one minute and then maybee not, its an experiment in processing. its quite likely it will have a print run of one. i think of picasso, some rave and pay a fortune, me i think its kindergarten stuff. which brings us back to its all in the eye of the beholder it seems.
tornado.... it seems the same question keeps getting asked. what was the answer back then?
well i have had a bit of time to think about it, and thanks for all your input. At least we covered a debate in an intelligent and civilised manner, ive come to this conclusion.
As astrophotographers... and this is largely who is comprised in this section it seems, the images we capture are supposed to be a believable representation of the heavens as we see them, that may be in the narrowband colours but the understanding they represent a very particular gas allows us to accept that as a true representation, whereas to manipulate to the extreme as art doesnt fulfill that requirement. Astrophotography by its very nature demands attention to detail, just to get a tracked and focused image demands this, the more experienced one is then generally the more detail is considered ( ie g2v star colours)
So ....... while interesting as a peice of art this type of image doesnt have a place here... not as far as i see it any way. This is my final comment so i'll move on. Once again thanks for your input.
Alchemy we cannot even barely perceive HA. Our visual system has evolved to be most sensitive at the frequencies of light that are in our environment. Colour does not exist! We perceive colour as the ratio of the different frequency (wavelength) intensities as recorded by the receptors in our eyes. It evolved to see prey better against the background and to also see predators against the background.
Most insects can see in the UV. If you look at a flower in UV it is like a landing strip showing the insect where the pollen is. We just see a boring flower and some do give us an inkling by their petal patterns but it is much clearer to an insect.
Our detectors are much better at this task. To represent any 'colour' that is recorded by a modern solid state detectors as a 'real' representation of our visual 'experience' is both futile and unrepresentative.
It is up to us to come to some balance. Yes many images are so overprocessed they make your artistic meter drop to zero. It does depend on what the image is meant to convey. Subtle differences in contrast and 'colour' or a 'real' representation of how the sky would look if your eyes were sensitive enough.
I think both have their place. My bias though is widefields as we 'should see them if we could'. Even that is wrong by your criteria as we cannot see HA. What is toooo RED for HA?
