processed m42

[tony]

not sure if this is overdone/underdone. perhaps i should learn to use post processing software rather than guessing what i'm doing lol. but its all part of the learning process i suppose so please be critical.

used corel paintshop pro X4 and it has been cropped.

[Jannis]

nice and detailed cure, a good start

I have to admit, it's the very first time i've seen or even heard about anyone using paintshop to process astro-photo...

i can't say 100% for sure, as i've never used it either for pictures like this, but it's say something like photoshop is more the way to go for processing. there are other free options too if you don't want to go for PS.

but on to the pic, it looks like you've captured a nice and detailed core there, but personally i think you've been a bit hard on the black level on the background. I'm sure you've got a Lot more details there in the pic that have been cut away.

here's a nice guide for levels and curves for PS, so you can more easily see how much details you might have in that original pic of yours that have just been cut away due to being to hard on the black background.

[rocketandroll]

As Jannis says, looks a little over clipped to me...

I tried stretching the image and most of it really is just black (stays black even with an extreme levels stretch) which would tend to indicate you've clipped out a lot of the feint stuff that was there.

To get that sort of detail in the core I'd suspect you had quite a bit of data on the rest of the nebula that could have been teased out with a few levels stretches and some noise reduction.

The colours look a bit odd too... I've never seen the core green before :-)

M42 is generally hues of pink, red and violet.

The data looks very good though, so definitely keep playing... but levels and curves are 90% of the battle.... get the stretching right and you're most of the way there.

Ben

[tony]

what about this one, same image but have a free trial of ps elements

[Pete Presland]

thats much better, lots of detail including running man nebula

[tony]

all a learning curve for me but an interesting one. and i suppose the beauty of a digital image is i can keep going back and have another go.

[Jannis]

wow, not That's and improovement! Much better!

Yes, the good thing with digital pics is you can redo things over and over, as long as you remember to save a copy of the original file. I normally never edit the original file, just a copy. Just in case...

Hope you don't mind, but i had a quick go at your pic there, as it looked rather gray and colourless. Did some small colour adjustments, and a tiny bit more levels and curves. You've really got quite a lot of nice data there

(i also cut too strongly on the black as i hurried a bit, but if you spend enough time with those fine details, that too will look nice and clear)

With a little more practice in photoshop, you'll get very good pics. Just remember, small steps, always small steps. open levels and curves windows maaany times to do small changes, never do too big changes at once or you might just end up having to start all over again.

[FrankieValley]

Tony, what a great improvement. Don't necessarily get pulled in by the PS hype. PS Elements is exactly what it says - it's a few bits of the full PS, a very few bits. I bought it for £80 a few years back and it is a waste of money unless you want to edit and organise your holiday snaps. My advice would be to try GIMP (free) and then perhaps move on to a more powerful version of PS or similar.

Having said that, just see what you can achieve with a basic photo editor. You really don't need to spend a lot of money on editing software to achieve a good result - you have proved that with an excellent image

[SkyJamie]

Hey Tony, really good improvement in your second attempt, its a great image to keep practising on so keep at it

Jamie

[tony]

wow, not That's and improovement! Much better!

Yes, the good thing with digital pics is you can redo things over and over, as long as you remember to save a copy of the original file. I normally never edit the original file, just a copy. Just in case...

Hope you don't mind, but i had a quick go at your pic there, as it looked rather gray and colourless. Did some small colour adjustments, and a tiny bit more levels and curves. You've really got quite a lot of nice data there

(i also cut too strongly on the black as i hurried a bit, but if you spend enough time with those fine details, that too will look nice and clear)

With a little more practice in photoshop, you'll get very good pics. Just remember, small steps, always small steps. open levels and curves windows maaany times to do small changes, never do too big changes at once or you might just end up having to start all over again.

a big improvement on mine jannis. i'll just keep at it.