Assistance with RGB Planetary Imaging

[Uplooker]

Hi All,

Mods, if this is in the wrong place, please move.

I am after assistance, from the initiated, in processing RGB planetarty images. I had never performed RGB planetary imaging before Saturday 5th Feb, when I imaged Jupiter.

I have done basic processing in Registax and CS6. I have been following the instructions in the following guide:-http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/space-imaging/tutorial_rgb_ps.html

I have been able to follow everything up until Merging the aligned frames into an RGB image, Step 3, "Create a new, blank RGB image"

I managed to perform the earlier steps in aligning the RGB images, but the way I happened to do that was by copying each image into a separate layer of the Blue image.

Once I have aligned the RGB images, how do I save those as separate images?

Also, after following the steps of "Merging the aligned frames into an RGB image" through to Step 11, I was not able to complete Step 12, "Make the RGB channel active". It was greyed out!

I may be getting the wrong end of the stick here, but it surprised me that I would be creating different layers for the RG&B, I would have expected to keep them as separate images to align them. I do not understand how to do that

Any further guidance would be appreciated.

 

Ian

 

 

[Pete Presland]

I normally use the Channels option, between the layers and paths tabs in CS2 that I use.

Open the 3 Greyscale images in Photoshop, make sure you can tell which one is what colour. Use the red image as your base image. select the green image copy it, and past it into just the green channel of the red base image, make sure just the green channel is highlighted. select the blue image copy it, and past it into just the blue channel of the red image, make sure just the blue channel is highlighted.

Hope this helps I am not the best at explaining myself though!

[Freddie]

The best way to align the RGB is to use WinJupos. This will also compensate for the rotation between the three stacks. Free download with various tutorials on the web.

[Bizibilder]

I follow Peters routine (Bunnygod1) - But would add:  Open the R, G and B images - they will (or should be) greyscale.  Change one of them into an RGB image using Image>Mode (I usually use the red for this).  Copy and past the Blue and then Green into the respective channels of the "Red" RGB image (working in channels not layers).  To align, work in the channels tab, turn off one channel, say - Green.  Use the "move" command on the blue  channel to align it to the red (you may need to blow up the size so you can see pixels and detail).  When done turn off blue and on with the green - align this to the red as well.  Should now be RGB aligned. 

Note - by aligning first the green to the red and then the blue to the red you should get good alignment with both.  If you try align green to red and then blue to green you can get some slight mis-alignment as you may have two "errors" that add up against you - if you see what I mean.

Hope that helps!

[MilwaukeeLion]

I just tried this for fun being I've never aligned greyscale images and combined into RGB.  I ran into a couple similar problems with Photoshop CC, so a couple different steps.  

 

1. After aligning 3 images, created new blank RGB image same size by file-new then under document type it listed my saved document I was working in so clicked on that (change color mode from greyscale to RGB) and it created new blank RGB file the same size.

2. Instead of "copy & paste" had to use quick selection tool to highlight the background (blue) image before being able to copy and paste it into the blue channel of the new image, then did the same for green and red.

3. Finally after red is copied and pasted in the red channel,  I just clicked on the RGB top layer and switched to layers then saved as tiff, looks similar to end example I think. 

4. The lighter image I used bunnygod1 & Bizibilder's techniques which is a step faster and its brighter has a slight more hue to it.  Not best example image for any of this im thinking.

 

If I did something wrong or if it doesn't look right, please let me know. I used the test images they provided from Cassini Raw images website courtesy of NASA and the Space Science Institute.