Another LRGB question..

[Droogie 2001]

Hi,

A fairly generalised question on LRGB so apologies if this has been asked many times before.
After ironing out numerous issues I am finally getting to the stage of beginning my LRGB imaging runs.

I am just in the early stages of creating my workflow.

1. Capture Luminance and RGB channel data. I am not binning due to my short FL (351mm) and high pixel size of CCD so I do not need to address this in the thread.2Capture Flats for all four channels. As I am using a CCD I have already generated the cooled Dark, Dark Flats and BIAS frames.

2. Stack Lights, Flat, Dark and BIAS for each channel (I do this in DSS. I will use DSS Groups for multiple nights)

3. Go into Photoshop and lightly process each of the RGB channels to bring out detail.

4. Go into Photoshop and fully process Luminance channel.

5. Combine RGB channels in Registar (that is Registar not Registax) Note: My attempts to combine in PS whilst worked left me with ugly star colours where the channels were not accurately aligned. Registar does an amazing job of combining the RGB images.

6. In Registar combine the combined RGB image from step 6 with the Luminance image from step 4

7.Go back into Photoshop and process again to get final image.

I realise there are many different ways of achieving the same results but I primarily interested in how much pre-processing if any I should be carrying out on the individual RGB images as well as the Luminance.

I strongly suspect I am making an error on step 4 where I am fully processing the luminance channel.
At the moment I only have a small amount of exposures (1 hour of Luminance and 40mins of colour)
So I am intending to increase this tonight…

Thanks

[PhotoGav]

Interesting question. I don't know the approved method, if such a thing exists, but my LRGB workflow is:

1. Align and combine each individual filter set

2. Align the four resulting files L, R, G & B

3. Fully process the L image

4. Combine the R, G & B stacked images in photoshop

5. Process fully the RGB image

6. Combine the L with the RGB

7. Final tweaks to LRGB image

My only real difference is that I don't process the individual R, G or B images before combining them. It has worked so far, but I'm interested to see what others do.

[Droogie 2001]

Thanks. Just trying out the different methods to see what works best for me. I have more Luminance  but really need some more RGB.