need help with processing

[cal1985]

Hi all, not sure it this is the right place for this thread, if not mods please move..

i am having great difficulty with the processing learning curve. im using photoshop cs4 and read loads of tutorials and tips. i have managed to get a grasp on histograms and curves as well as the highpass layer. but now im stuck and seem to have come to a dead end.. i dont know what else p/s can do ... and cant use it to its full potential, also am i right in thinking that when you adjust the curves, this is the brightness in a certain part of the image depending on where the curve is adjusted ? please can sombody help me with any tutiorials that give me a few more tips and tricks, but also explain in laymanns terms !

[damnut]

Hi There,

Depends what curves you are adjusting! (colour, lighting..) would recommend photoshop for dummies, its a great guide.

[pete_l]

Yes, you are correct about curves. Dragging the line on the graph upwards makes the image appear brighter and dragging the line down makes it darker. The "dots" that appear at the point where you dragged fix the light/darkness at that point, so any further adjustments only affect parts of the graph.

So far as other things go, you can adjust the individual colours with curves and histograms, instead of the complete RGB values. That will change the colour balance.

The most powerful features are the ability to select regions of an image - either by clicking and drawing the region you want, or by selecting it by various means - and then applying variations to just that region. Do some searches on "masks" for more information.

You can also create "layers" and add effects to a layer, rather than to your master image. That's useful as you can easily remove the effect, by disabling the layer - you can search for more information about them, too.

Other things that people do is create layers with deliberately blurred versions of their image. By applying different functions to the way the layers combine, you can use this to sharpen your image, reduce the level of noise in the image and bring out only the dimmer features, by brightening them selectively.

Those are just a few of the features that are used for processing astronomical images. I'd suggest searching for "astronomy processing photoshop" and picking up some of the tutorials you find there.

[Daniel-K]

try this Enterprise Astrophotography: Shooting the stars | Beginning with Photoshop

[cal1985]

thank you so much to all, this is a great point for me to get stuck in to.. , im so shocked at how much there is to learn, i suppose the best learning curve is keep at it and learn on the go! thank you again to all of you

[Daniel-K]

keep at it im just getting into AP and the processing is that hard part keep us up to date with some pics