M81 & M82 - My first go at these

[gnomus]

2 hours ago, Starwiz said:

Thanks Wim, although I haven't got PI, so wonder if it's possible to do the same type of stuff in PS?  

John

If anything it is easier in PS!

[gnomus]

2 minutes ago, gnomus said:

If anything it is easier in PS!

I suppose I should try to back up what I said...  I like Wim's version a lot, but - call me Goldilocks - I would like the black point to be somewhere between your latest version and his.  I downloaded your version and used the PS eyedropper tool to measure the background at various points.  Your background was nice and even which is good.  However the tool was putting the R,G & B values around the 35-36 mark.  Olly Penrice (in numerous posts) has said that he aims for around the 22-23 mark - and who am I to argue with him.  Colour intensity is now a matter of taste.  You can go for dramatic saturated colours or you can go for a more muted effect.  I have been a 'saturated' kind of guy, but increasingly I am admiring more restrained processing.   It is very easy to increase noise if you just use Saturation in Photoshop.  If you do just use Sat then I would suggest you do so as a layer and use blend mode 'Color'.  Or you could try the following method:

1. In PS duplicate the background layer twice so that you now have three layers all featuring the same image
2. Change the Blend Mode of the Top Layer to 'Soft Light'
3. Change the Blend Mode of the Top Layer to 'Color'
4. Select Top Layer and do a 'Merge Down' to the layer below - you now have two layers.
5. Run Gaussian Blur on this new top layer.  Set it around the 0.6-0.8 mark.
6. Flatten the image

This was shown to me by Mr Penrice.  Because it is a fixed routine, I have recorded it and have it saved as an action.  So I first ran this routine.  (Note you could run it more than once).  Then I brought in the levels so that the background was at the 22-23 mark.  I got this (I did no other processing - it took less than 2 minutes):

 

 

 

[Starwiz]

43 minutes ago, wimvb said:

I'm convinced that it is possible. The basic procedure, independent of software, is as follows:

You create a b/w copy of your colour image, and process this the usual way (stretching, noise reduction, sharpening, etc). You blur the colour image and increase saturation very agressively. Then you combine the b/w image with the colour image.

I have no experience with photoshop, but probably by blending the b/w image as a layer, using lighten as blending mode. There must be quite a number of  photoshop tutorials out there that show the procedure. Just google "lrgb combination photoshop"

Hope this helps

Thanks again wim, I'll give it a go as soon as I have time.  

John

[Starwiz]

6 minutes ago, gnomus said:

I suppose I should try to back up what I said...  I like Wim's version a lot, but - call me Goldilocks - I would like the black point to be somewhere between your latest version and his.  I downloaded your version and used the PS eyedropper tool to measure the background at various points.  Your background was nice and even which is good.  However the tool was putting the R,G & B values around the 35-36 mark.  Olly Penrice (in numerous posts) has said that he aims for around the 22-23 mark - and who am I to argue with him.  Colour intensity is now a matter of taste.  You can go for dramatic saturated colours or you can go for a more muted effect.  I have been a 'saturated' kind of guy, but increasingly I am admiring more restrained processing.   It is very easy to increase noise if you just use Saturation in Photoshop.  If you do just use Sat then I would suggest you do so as a layer and use blend mode 'Color'.  Or you could try the following method:

1. In PS duplicate the background layer twice so that you now have three layers all featuring the same image
2. Change the Blend Mode of the Top Layer to 'Soft Light'
3. Change the Blend Mode of the Top Layer to 'Color'
4. Select Top Layer and do a 'Merge Down' to the layer below - you now have two layers.
5. Run Gaussian Blur on this new top layer.  Set it around the 0.6-0.8 mark.
6. Flatten the image

This was shown to me by Mr Penrice.  Because it is a fixed routine, I have recorded it and have it saved as an action.  So I first ran this routine.  (Note you could run it more than once).  Then I brought in the levels so that the background was at the 22-23 mark.  I got this (I did no other processing - it took less than 2 minutes):

 

 

 

Thanks gnomus, I'll give it a try.  

John

[wimvb]

To add to mr Goldilocks (sorry: Gnomus ) excellent walk through:

If after processing, you end up with two versions of an image that you like, there is always a method in both PS and PI, to blend the two. It usually involves some sort of masking.

This is the fun of ap processing, you're only done when you say stop. And there's always more than one way to skin a ... process an image.

Have fun.

[Starwiz]

Another go at processing the same image, but this time cropped around M81.  It seems like it's been cloudy for weeks here, so no more data to play with.

John