NGC6960 Veil Nebula - I got the data, now the processing

[peroni]

Check this out for a first pass at NGC6960. Captured over two nights, a week apart.

Total image is 2 hours worth of 90 second lights with the usual darks, flats, and bias added. ISO 800 on my Canon 1000D unmodded.

 

This is my first edit attempt. A quick stack in DSS with 2x drizzle.

I processed in Photoshop but didn't use star masks or layers. The stretching is a bit overdone but good to see something.

My challenge next is to master layers and masks in PS and end up with a good documented workflow for PS processing of future images.

I'll post improvements (if I get any) on this thread.

[poogle]

Amazing results with an unmodded DSLR and short exposures, hats off! I guess you image under dark skies with little light pollution?

If you get stuck or want help with the post processing, just upload the tiff to dropbox and let us know (I'd love to try my limited PixInsight skills on this one  )

/Patrik

[peroni]

Amazing results with an unmodded DSLR and short exposures, hats off! I guess you image under dark skies with little light pollution?

If you get stuck or want help with the post processing, just upload the tiff to dropbox and let us know (I'd love to try my limited PixInsight skills on this one )

/Patrik

Thanks Patrik. I'm in quite a dark area. Although it's never dark enough for astro photographers :-)

I'll keep you updated with progress on this. It might take a while though. I have to be in the mood for this PS malarkey.

sent from my tablet

[peroni]

I watched Doug's PS youtube last night and added a luminance layer to the image. See below.

A great improvement. The luminance layer is definitely something I'll include in the PS workflow. I'll go back and revisit layers and masks next to minimise the clipping and over exposure of the stars and background sky.

[peroni]

Here we go again then. More changes. 

This time I started from the image above and added a layer mask to make some changes in Curves.

I then increased contrast on the A and B Lab channels

Before finally adding a luminance layer to the image and again masking out some areas.

If you are interested... Tutorials I've followed for this so far are all from Doug German on Youtube here

It's hard to say if I've over-egged it. Probably when I look tomorrow I'll see some flaws I hadn't noticed and want to start again.

Next steps are colour enhancement. Hopefully 

[Pete Presland]

looks like its coming along nicely!

[peroni]

I think this will be the final edit now.

Colour was added using Image -> Adjustments -> Match colour. I ticked the neutralise box as this gave it a more natural appearance (in my eyes).

A few more small tweaks using Noel Carboni's actions to smooth the noise and enhance colour a bit more.

I'm pretty happy with this image for now and I've learnt loads about Photoshop. I wrote it down so I don't forget. 

Shout out if you think the image could be tweaked further.

[lensman57]

I think this will be the final edit now.

Colour was added using Image -> Adjustments -> Match colour. I ticked the neutralise box as this gave it a more natural appearance (in my eyes).

A few more small tweaks using Noel Carboni's actions to smooth the noise and enhance colour a bit more.

NGC6960 vanilla stack 16bit - Edit 4 - colour.jpg

I'm pretty happy with this image for now and I've learnt loads about Photoshop. I wrote it down so I don't forget. 

Shout out if you think the image could be tweaked further.

That is looking great now, well done. If you wish you could drop the original stack , no stretching, colour correction or adjustments,  in DropBox and post a link. We could have a go and see how much data you have and what could be done with it.

Regards,

A.G

[peroni]

That is looking great now, well done. If you wish you could drop the original stack , no stretching, colour correction or adjustments,  in DropBox and post a link. We could have a go and see how much data you have and what could be done with it.

Regards,

A.G

Hey you go A.G

One dropbox link here

This is the vanilla stack from DSS. Nothing done to it so it'll be pretty dark.

[lensman57]

Hey you go A.G

One dropbox link here

This is the vanilla stack from DSS. Nothing done to it so it'll be pretty dark.

Thank you, will report back if I have anything worthwhile to show.

Regards,

A.G

[lensman57]

Hi,

Here it is, due to my lack of experience it took nearly two hours to go through it all. I proessed this in PI and then finished it in PS, just tidying up really.

Your camera has done well with the blue, expected, but you need more red signal, perhaps longer subs would help. I have stretched it untill I could hear the photons scream but I enjoyed the process.

Hope you approve and thanks for taking the trouble of posting this.

Regards,

A.G

[Pete Presland]

a good end result, especially for only 90 sec subs!

[peroni]

Hi,

Here it is, due to my lack of experience it took nearly two hours to go through it all. I proessed this in PI and then finished it in PS, just tidying up really.

Your camera has done well with the blue, expected, but you need more red signal, perhaps longer subs would help. I have stretched it untill I could hear the photons scream but I enjoyed the process.

Hope you approve and thanks for taking the trouble of posting this.

Regards,

A.G

Thanks for taking only 2 hours to highlight the inadequacies of my processing :-D

It's good to see what you can achieve with the same data.

It looks like you've done something to enhance the colours, they look very vivid.

I can't see a boundary. Did you use a mask in the processing?

I haven't used Pixinsight before but, if you have the time, could you post the steps you went through to get the finished image you posted.

sent from my tablet

[lensman57]

Thanks for taking only 2 hours to highlight the inadequacies of my processing :-D

It's good to see what you can achieve with the same data.

It looks like you've done something to enhance the colours, they look very vivid.

I can't see a boundary. Did you use a mask in the processing?

I haven't used Pixinsight before but, if you have the time, could you post the steps you went through to get the finished image you posted.

sent from my tablet

Good Morning,

Glad you liked this, as for PI:

Screen Transfer Function

Background Neutralisation,

Auto background Extraction, default settings

Deconvolution with Point Spread Function, Star Mask and stretched and adjusted Lum mask,

Colour Calibration,

Histogram Stretch,

Saturation Enhance,

Curves to increase Contrast and Saturation,

ACDNR for both Lum and Chrom,

Morphological Star Reduction

Final Histogram Stretch,

import in PS,

Duplicate, Star Mask and perform a slight smart sharpen, use the same mask inverted for a light noise reduction, per channel colour saturation, very light. Enhance star colour, adjust histogram and downsize, convert and save in PNG.

I am sure that the experts can get much better results in half as much time but I am very new to PI and hopeless with PS, my usual weapon of choice is StarTools.

Regards,

A.G

[ollypenrice]

Interesting that so many other imagers use masks so much. I use them very little. A star mask for stretching only the target rather than the stars is the only one I'll always use. After that I use Layers extensively but I use Colour Select to identify the regions to receive particular processing techniques. Most other peole use masks for distinuishing zones, it seems.

Olly

[lensman57]

Interesting that so many other imagers use masks so much. I use them very little. A star mask for stretching only the target rather than the stars is the only one I'll always use. After that I use Layers extensively but I use Colour Select to identify the regions to receive particular processing techniques. Most other peole use masks for distinuishing zones, it seems.

Olly

Good afternoon Olly,

You are 100% correct in stating that lot of imagers including myself make too much use of the masks, I use them in PS but with very little stretch and a large blur. I use the colour select as you suggested once to me but I feel that it is most effective with strong signal, this one actually did have a red and blue boost with colour select. I did not try your usual trick of duplicating the layers with different blending modes, perhaps the OP could have a go and see which version produces less noise.

Regards,

A.G

[peroni]

Interesting that so many other imagers use masks so much. I use them very little. A star mask for stretching only the target rather than the stars is the only one I'll always use. After that I use Layers extensively but I use Colour Select to identify the regions to receive particular processing techniques. Most other peole use masks for distinuishing zones, it seems.

Olly

I stretched the image a little with levels until I could see the target nebula. Then I masked everything else and continued to stretch the nebula, leaving the stars at a small size. I think in I should have put a bit more blurring on my Gaussian mask.

I'll have to read up on colour select. It is quite tricky to target areas for enhancing without adversely impacting the image as a whole, sounds like this colour select could do the trick.

sent from my tablet

[peroni]

Good afternoon Olly,

You are 100% correct in stating that lot of imagers including myself make too much use of the masks, I use them in PS but with very little stretch and a large blur. I use the colour select as you suggested once to me but I feel that it is most effective with strong signal, this one actually did have a red and blue boost with colour select. I did not try your usual trick of duplicating the layers with different blending modes, perhaps the OP could have a go and see which version produces less noise.

Regards,

A.G

I'll give my image another shot from the start. Colour select sounds like a good weapon to have in my arsenal. It does seem as though we need different tricks for different targets.

What do you mean by " duplicating the layers with different blending modes"?

sent from my tablet

[lensman57]

I'll give my image another shot from the start. Colour select sounds like a good weapon to have in my arsenal. It does seem as though we need different tricks for different targets.

What do you mean by " duplicating the layers with different blending modes"?

sent from my tablet

Hi,

I think Olly is the expert in this one, but you duplicate the background layer twice so you have 3 layers on top of each other and if my memory serves me correct you assign something like overlay or softlight to the top layer, the image goes dark but the colours get saturated, you then only merge down the top layer so you end up with only 2 layers now and change the blend mode of the top layer to colour, the image lightens up but the colours stay saturated. It is supposed to avoid introducing noise through colour saturation . I am pretty sure about the procedure but not about the blend mode of the top layer to start with, it could be something else but overlay or softlight. Perhaps Olly or another expert could instruct you as to how to do it right.

Regards,

A.G

[m37]

That's absolutely superb!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

[peroni]

Here we go then...

This attempt wasn't from the beginning. I picked up where I left the previous image.

Colour Select and then levels to increase the nebula blue and red regions. This looks to be a great tool which I'll be using in my processing from now on. 

Saturation was increased a bit in all areas and then again a bit more in the magenta area only.

I used Colour Match again to bring up luminance just a tad.

I think this version is closer to what you managed to achieve. I've lost the stars a bit (clipped). It's so tricky to keep the whole image intact while enhancing a certain area.

I reckon I've spent over 10 hours on this image so far but I've learnt loads