Camtasia of Veil Nebula processing

[antimorris]

I have had a few people send me messages asking how I processed my narrowband image of the Veil Nebula that I posted a few weeks ago. Therefore, I decided to make a Camtasia video of my step-by-step. It takes you from the aligned channel files all the way to finished image. I use Photoshop for processing so if you use Photoshop as well and are interested, hopefully you will find it informative and interesting. . .

p.s. sorry about the dog barking part way through He didn't quite understand the request for quiet!

Here is where it is located:

Enterprise Astrophotography: Shooting the stars | Building a narrowband Image

And if you wanted to check out the final image again, it is here:

Enterprise Astrophotography: Shooting the stars | Nebulas

[AndyUK]

Thanks Anna - This will be a great help! At the moment, I can do with all the help I can get...

[ashworthacca]

Another video that I'm sure will be mesmerising, thanks for posting this Anna.

[carastro]

Very interesting Anna, thanks for posting.

Carole

[roundycat]

this only seems to want to run at about one fifth of the proper speed on my machine. Is this down to my lousy BB speed or a different problem? Is it possible to download the whole thing and then run it 'locally' whereby Broadband speed is irrelevant?

Dennis

[AndyUK]

Hi Dennis - I thought my BB speed was bad (1.2Mb download max) but it played okay for me...

[antimorris]

Dennis,

Here is a link for a direct download: https://files.me.com/antimorris/qpx9us.mov

[roundycat]

Anna, thanks for the link. It took ten minutes to download it and then another half hour to get the right update to Quicktime and install that. A quick look at the intro at least shows it to be running correctly. I look forward to seeing the whole thing.

Dennis

[MikeWilson]

Thanks Anna - I'm really looking forward to watching this!

[antimorris]

I just finished a VERY basic stretching video. This one is for those who know nothing about Photoshop except how to open the picture and walks you through Levels and Curves just to get a basic stretch. Nothing fancy, no advanced stuff and I used a stack of just an ok night of M51 from a while back so not perfect focus, bloated stars and all just so demonstrate what a beginner image can result with no fancy processing at all. Basically just a very quick and dirty process.

I am making a page for it now and will have it uploaded soon (and will provide a link for those like Dennis with slow internet connections so cant watch the streaming play.)

I hope its helpful - and I still have 24 days left on my Camtasia trial so if there are any specific requests for Photoshop help I would be happy to make a video in my spare time.

[ashworthacca]

Anna, you are a star!

Can I ask a little favour about the North American Neb video you did for me. I got a little lost at the end when you had the layers for Stars-semiprocessed, Starless, High pass etc and how you set the type of layer (normal, lighten, colour etc) and the opacity and wondered if you could do a little video explaining this part a little more and what you are trying to achieve with each layer.

Sorry for being cheeky:o

Thanks Anna

[antimorris]

Martin -

No problem, it might be a few hours until I get it to you though as its a gorgeous day and I am headed out to the garden with my daughter to play in the sand box

The "Basic Stretching" video is here (www.eprisephoto.com/basic-stretching)

Note: it is a video of very simple processing. Nothing fancy and no prior Photoshop knowledge required other than how to open your photo into Photoshop. The final result is not fantastic, but it will walk you through a basic stretch to get you started first with no actions at all (all done manually) and then using two different action sets just to speed up the process. You do not have to have any action sets though to follow the first half of the video - I do everything manually to show you how to do levels and curves.

[ashworthacca]

Thanks Anna, no rush just enjoy your day with your daughter in the sand box.

[antimorris]

It is up now on the site linked (Enterprise Astrophotography: Shooting the stars | Basic Stretching of an Astrophoto) .... the direct to vimeo link so you can download it (its an option over on the lower right) is here: Basic astrophoto stretching on Vimeo

[ashworthacca]

Anna, I have just had a chance to look at the basic stretching video. I thought I knew the basic principals of stretching but that video was very very good indeed, a great insight into a fundamental part of processing astro images.

Many thanks

[MikeWilson]

Anna,

That stretching video was exceptional. I didn't think to use several iterations of levels to adjust the gamma before applying curves. Prior to your video I was applying the curves somewhat blindly to start.

I have bookmarked your video URL and will share it with others :-)

All the best,

Mike

[antimorris]

I am glad to hear that several of you are finding them useful! That was my hope.

[Dann]

Hi Anna

Thanks for sharing some of your experience. Im just stepping into imaging myself so the more basic processing video was very helpful.

Cheers

Dan

[Starlight 1]

One word for this video, Brilliant !

[AndyUK]

I'd certainly vote for this (and the other two) being made a sticky