M24 Star Cloud region

[Tom OD]

I was messing about with one of my mosaics, and I was looking at a few areas which themselves are good images. So from a photo within a photo, here is the M24 region which I really like. While this region of the mosaic is well photographed, I wanted to boost it, as I had not seen people add Ha to this region. I remember the blend was a bit tricky. It did not look right in Lighten mode which is what I normally use, and I ended up using it in normal mode, and lightly at that.

So this is just a crop from the mosaic, not further processing in this state as a stand alone image. I m not sure what the name of the nebula is at the top, but its just below the Swan nebula.

Tom

 

[simmo39]

V nice, a very rich image.

[Allinthehead]

So many stars. Stunning. I love the golden colour of them in the bottom left. Is the black area at bottom centre of the image supposed to be that black? Looks inky. 

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[Tom OD]

2 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

So many stars. Stunning. I love the golden colour of them in the bottom left. Is the black area at bottom centre of the image supposed to be that black? Looks inky. 

Yes it's probably too black, although the image is not black clipped. I must check it out on the laptop. I may have pushed a last contrast step too far without realising it. 

Tom. 

[Tom OD]

Thanks to Allinthehead for noticing that the Dark nebula were too black. I ve been looking at the overall image, and there are quiet a few areas that are black clipped. I got 0\0\0 on the colour dropped in these areas. So I need to do a bit of work on these areas. I did have a comment on the mosaic from a guy who said that the blacks were too harsh when he was looking at the large print. So now I can go and fix it.

I was probably far too concerned about the colour balance, the blending, and the detail, that I missed the black point setting on those dark nebula.

Here are screen shots for my own notes that I was just messing with. It might be useful to anyone who has the same issue in their images. It might not be the best method, I was just experimenting, but I did prefer the second method of the wall side of the curve adjustment. The curve looks as though it will be easier to blend in also, as less shadows and dim areas are boosted, so they should work seamlessly.

Tom

 

[johnfosteruk]

Terrific image.

[sloz1664]

Terrific image Tom. I must spend more time processing my images. I have the time but I have lots of image data I need to process. I think I'm going to need a new lifetime. 

Steve

[swag72]

There's lots to see in there that's for sure. It's easy to get lost on one part of an image when you concentrate so hard on the difficult bits ..... I like it Tom, Very nice

[peter shah]

a beautiful part of the sky....superbly imaged

[Tom OD]

3 hours ago, swag72 said:

There's lots to see in there that's for sure. It's easy to get lost on one part of an image when you concentrate so hard on the difficult bits ..... I like it Tom, Very nice

Thanks guys and girls for the comments. Yes Sara there is a lot going on in the image, but this is only a 3% from the whole thing. 

It was a schoolboy error really black clipping some of the dark Nebula. No harm no foul. All will be corrected shortly ?

[PatrickGilliland]

3% of the image, think we can forgive the oversight - just this time though

Lovely image - is the master out there somewhere for a view?  Not usre I have seen if so.

Paddy