M106 (abused as RGB vs LRGB target)

[graemlourens]

Wow, guys this has really been a game-changer for me. A pivoting point lets say!

First insight is that i should not try and avoid Photoshop. Masking is a great deal easier, and the second thing is the Starshrink tool. If used carefully and then taking care of the halo's really does do the job extremely well.
I just tested this on my caught M63 L data from yesterday (i'll then still use it and reprocess M106 and post later, M63 already took me 4 hours so will still need some time).

I first gently used Starshrink (on a second layer, masking through only what i wanted - it does pinch also galaxies i saw) and then i copied the layer, stretched it down a little, and then only gently with few opacity brushes took away the halos. I think the result is stunning, the stars look much nicer to me now.

(Left original, right is processed)

Thx again for all your tips! Now i'll go through old data and try and get the most out of it

Kind regards, Graem

[graemlourens]

and as promised here the revised M106 version. I separately reduced and tamed stars in L & RGB. Furthermore i changed the angle slightly & cropped differently. The stars are now far more acceptable i think.

The biggest issue i had was to not have colorful star halos. But i'm thinking more and more, shouldn't i just do this once on the RGB version instead of doing it 2x and trying to do it the same on both L & RGB? The plugin also works on color images i see.

Any thoughts welcome. P.s. i also started a separate thread about the star control, as this thread drifted far off

I will still have to try the other version, stretching differently (instead of post-stretching using the plugin)

Kind regards & thx again all of you for your hints & thoughts.

Graem

[graemlourens]

@Uranium235 i finally sat down for a few hours to try the star reduction in the initial stretching as shown in your vid.

It works extremely well, and give me a whole lot of power to handle certain stars separately. I never thought Photoshop would add so much ease for processing. I did though adapt your process slightly, as i have terrible halos so had to improvise, but got a workflow that reduces the star size and makes the halos less visible (totally removing them is still very difficult for me)

I took my old M81 pic and re-did it from scratch. I think the difference in the star 'quality' is thrilling, at least to me. (I also did some other changes, less saturation, etc)

Thx again for your hint.

OLD:

 

NEW:

 

[Uranium235]

43 minutes ago, graemlourens said:

@Uranium235 i finally sat down for a few hours to try the star reduction in the initial stretching as shown in your vid.

It works extremely well, and give me a whole lot of power to handle certain stars separately. I never thought Photoshop would add so much ease for processing. I did though adapt your process slightly, as i have terrible halos so had to improvise, but got a workflow that reduces the star size and makes the halos less visible (totally removing them is still very difficult for me)

I took my old M81 pic and re-did it from scratch. I think the difference in the star 'quality' is thrilling, at least to me. (I also did some other changes, less saturation, etc)

Thx again for your hint.

 

Hey No problem mate! Good to see it working for you too! (the difference between the two images is quite noticeable)

It gets a little tricky on stars that are embedded within nebulae, but you can get around that with use of the eyedropper tool to tell you where to place anchor points in the curve window. It wont be long before you will be doing in in a matter of a couple of minutes The great part is, it doesnt mash your galaxies like the plugin does becuase your are excluding/erasing them from the layer mask.  Also, its pretty useful for tidying up/rounding stars that are a bit dodgy.