Trouble matching up two halves of the sun

[sologuitarist61]

The title says it all really. My present Hyperion 13mm doesn't allow me quite get a 100% image of the sun, so I have to cut off a bit at the top and the bottom. So thought I would have a go at taking two separate images of each half (with a decent overlap) and join them in PS. The problem is that I can never get the two sets of images to have the same density and detail as each other, even though they are taken just seconds later with the same exposure. I have got them fairly close and then tried putting them through Registax wavelets but that come out looking 'plasticy' and horrible.

So how do you get them seamlessly joined? I have tried running them through Registax first and that just seeem to make the mismatch even worse. Also tried Photomerge in PS but that just says that it cannot match the two and doesn't allow me to manually join them even though I tick the 'Reposition' box.

Any hints and tips would be appreciate. Thanks in advance

[VigdisVZ]

It sounds strange that you cant do it manually it photoshop with some effort.

Any chance I could see the originals and maybe have a quick try so I can let you know what I think?

[Bizibilder]

Process both originals as close as you can get then use Microsoft ICE (Freeware) to merge them - it will automatically tweak them to match. The formats it will use include TIFF, PNG and JPEG among many others.

[sologuitarist61]

That is handy to know Roger, thank you - my software is multiplying by the minute!!

It sounds strange that you cant do it manually it photoshop with some effort.

Any chance I could see the originals and maybe have a quick try so I can let you know what I think?

Attached below Carl

These haven't had anything done to them - straight out of the camera.

[Bizibilder]

This was tricky! ICE didn#t want to know - I suspect that there wasnt enough contrast in the images. So i converted to bmp and used "imerge" to mrege then reconverted back to JPEG - to get this:

[VigdisVZ]

That is handy to know Roger, thank you - my software is multiplying by the minute!!

Attached below Carl

These haven't had anything done to them - straight out of the camera.

They're highly compressed JPEGs, I guess that's a webcam then?

Or have the SGL gallery compressed them?

Anyway's ill see what I can do.

[VigdisVZ]

I did it old school:

*Cut the both so they overlapped a little less.

*I put one image on one layer while the other as background.

*Tried as good as i could to match the sunspots with the opacity down on the top layer. Used a circular marking box to get the sun actually round (the overlap mismatches a few pixels but it looks better).

*Fidgeted with levels until it was as close as I could get it.

*Layer mask gradient over the seam ont he top layer.

*Saved lossless PNG.

Now you have two versions, both from me and from Bizi.

[sologuitarist61]

They're highly compressed JPEGs, I guess that's a webcam then?

Or have the SGL gallery compressed them?

Anyway's ill see what I can do.

No it is SGL that has compressed them they were originally 16mp files

[VigdisVZ]

Ok, I could patch those up too if you can send them to me by other means.

[sologuitarist61]

Thanks Guys, will have a look at both

Roger

I assume the merge to mrege is in ICE?

Carl

Thanks for the break down - only thing I didn't understand was

*Layer mask gradient over the seam ont he top layer.

How is that done please?

[VigdisVZ]

*Layer mask gradient over the seam ont he top layer.

How is that done please?

You add a layer mask to the top layer. Then you use the gradient tool with just black/white over the seam between the layers. This does so that the edge of the layer is softly faded out into nothing, seamlessly blending in to the background layer. The hardest part is remembering exactly how to place the gradient, but you can fidget around with that in the layer mask until you get it right.

[Bizibilder]

Mine was merged with "imerge" as ICE wouldn't work for some reason (contrast or lack of lots of different contrast areas).