Help please

[Galen Gilmore]

I finally created my first image for a long time, but I am more than disappointed with the final result...

60x60s

Canon 600D, SW 130PDS, SWEQ5

This is meant to be M4 and Antares, but it became very dark and colorless after stacking. This is the best I was able to do with it, but in the end the stars have no color and it seems over processed. I have had this problem before, but I can't figure out how to solve it. I suspect it has something to do with my short exposure times of only 60 seconds, but the individual RAWs have plenty of color in the stars.

If anybody could help me out here that would be nice.

[tooth_dr]

What ISO?

[Galen Gilmore]

35 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

What ISO?

800

I should also mention that i was shooting in bottle 4-5 skies with a LP filter.

[Atreta]

2 hours ago, Galen Gilmore said:

I finally created my first image for a long time, but I am more than disappointed with the final result...

60x60s

Canon 600D, SW 130PDS, SWEQ5

This is meant to be M4 and Antares, but it became very dark and colorless after stacking. This is the best I was able to do with it, but in the end the stars have no color and it seems over processed. I have had this problem before, but I can't figure out how to solve it. I suspect it has something to do with my short exposure times of only 60 seconds, but the individual RAWs have plenty of color in the stars.

If anybody could help me out here that would be nice.

Hi, Galen

Did  you stack it with dss? If so, have you saved the picture with settings applied or embedded? If you did process with dss saved with settings apllied, have you raised the saturation before ? Sorry for all the questions, just  need more information to understand what may went wrong.  It will also help others to understand and help better 

[Galen Gilmore]

4 hours ago, Atreta said:

Hi, Galen

Did  you stack it with dss? If so, have you saved the picture with settings applied or embedded? If you did process with dss saved with settings apllied, have you raised the saturation before ? Sorry for all the questions, just  need more information to understand what may went wrong.  It will also help others to understand and help better 

1. Yes I do stack with DSS 

2. I do not know if they were embedded or applied, but I presume it was applied.

3. I usually save multiple times with different DSS settings applied, usually 1 unchanged, 1 histogram align, and 1 saturation boost.

[Atreta]

10 hours ago, Galen Gilmore said:

3. I usually save multiple times with different DSS settings applied, usually 1 unchanged, 1 histogram align, and 1 saturation boost.

I'm trying to think what may have caused the lack of color. I'm not that much expert yet with AP. Maybe you could try to raise the saturation level to a higher value just to check if it gets better. 

Also could you upload the autosave tif file? I can give it a try with startools. 

Btw, it's recommended to save with the settings embedded and process later with another software like photoshop, gimp, etc

 

[VNA]

Don't know much about imaging but in visual it is a common complaint particularly from new amateurs.
It is for the most part a question of aperture: as they say bigger is better!

[Galen Gilmore]

53 minutes ago, Atreta said:

I'm trying to think what may have caused the lack of color. I'm not that much expert yet with AP. Maybe you could try to raise the saturation level to a higher value just to check if it gets better. 

Also could you upload the autosave tif file? I can give it a try with startools. 

Btw, it's recommended to save with the settings embedded and process later with another software like photoshop, gimp, etc

 

Here are the three TIF saves

m4.TIF = RGB align

M41.TIF = unchanged

M4.TIF

M41.TIF

[Galen Gilmore]

19 minutes ago, VNA said:

Don't know much about imaging but in visual it is a common complaint particularly from new amateurs.
It is for the most part a question of aperture: as they say bigger is better!

Im afraid that imaging is a completely different matter.

[wimvb]

There is a colour cast in your image, but otherwise very little colour. What was the ISO setting for your camera? Some of the stars are already over exposed.

Unfortunately DSS can cause colour loss sometimes. It's important that you don't apply any correction settings in DSS after stacking.

Another cause for star colour loss is the use of an UHC filter as light pollution filter. UHC filters are used to enhance contrast of nebulae, but they block a good portion of the light spectrum, causing colour loss in stars and galaxies.

Anyway, here's my version of your data, processed in PixInsight:

[Galen Gilmore]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

There is a colour cast in your image, but otherwise very little colour. What was the ISO setting for your camera? Some of the stars are already over exposed.

Unfortunately DSS can cause colour loss sometimes. It's important that you don't apply any correction settings in DSS after stacking.

Another cause for star colour loss is the use of an UHC filter as light pollution filter. UHC filters are used to enhance contrast of nebulae, but they block a good portion of the light spectrum, causing colour loss in stars and galaxies.

Anyway, here's my version of your data, processed in PixInsight:

Wow thank you.

My ISO was at 800 for this target, I thought maybe I could've gone up to 1600 since my RAWs were close to the left (histogram), but you say they are over exposed. I edited the auto save file in PS as well and had no luck either.

I also was not using a UHC filter, but rather a normal LP filter, so that couldn't be the problem. 

It seems like Pixlnsight really works well, is it a worthwhile investment at this stage? Or should I master PS processing first?

[Atreta]

2 hours ago, wimvb said:

There is a colour cast in your image, but otherwise very little colour. What was the ISO setting for your camera? Some of the stars are already over exposed.

Unfortunately DSS can cause colour loss sometimes. It's important that you don't apply any correction settings in DSS after stacking.

Another cause for star colour loss is the use of an UHC filter as light pollution filter. UHC filters are used to enhance contrast of nebulae, but they block a good portion of the light spectrum, causing colour loss in stars and galaxies.

Anyway, here's my version of your data, processed in PixInsight:

That's some PI sorcery

It really cleaned up the image. 

[wimvb]

49 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Wow thank you.

My ISO was at 800 for this target, I thought maybe I could've gone up to 1600 since my RAWs were close to the left (histogram), but you say they are over exposed. I edited the auto save file in PS as well and had no luck either.

I also was not using a UHC filter, but rather a normal LP filter, so that couldn't be the problem. 

It seems like Pixlnsight really works well, is it a worthwhile investment at this stage? Or should I master PS processing first?

It's difficult not to overexpose Antares in this image.

If the histogram was to the left, then maybe DSS applied the histogram changes. I believe the Autosave file is always non-stretched.

As for PixInsight or PS, both work well. It's usually the person doing the processing rather than the software which determines the outcome.

The advantage that PI has over PS, is that it is aimed at astro image processing. This means that it has all the gadgets that come with various plugins and "actions" for PS. You can also do the stacking in PI, giving you more control over the process. But the amount of control and freedom can be overwhelming. I sometimes compare PI to the mixer board in a recording studio: frightening in the beginning, but very powerful once you find your way.

[Stu Wilson]

On ‎09‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 17:50, Galen Gilmore said:

Im afraid that imaging is a completely different matter.

 

On ‎09‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 17:49, Galen Gilmore said:

Here are the three TIF saves

m4.TIF = RGB align

M41.TIF = unchanged

M4.TIF

M41.TIF

My quick try with it. Which didn't go to total plan ?

[Galen Gilmore]

1 hour ago, Stu Wilson said:

 

My quick try with it. Which didn't go to total plan ?

Better than my version, but again no color.

[Galen Gilmore]

21 hours ago, wimvb said:

It's difficult not to overexpose Antares in this image.

If the histogram was to the left, then maybe DSS applied the histogram changes. I believe the Autosave file is always non-stretched.

As for PixInsight or PS, both work well. It's usually the person doing the processing rather than the software which determines the outcome.

The advantage that PI has over PS, is that it is aimed at astro image processing. This means that it has all the gadgets that come with various plugins and "actions" for PS. You can also do the stacking in PI, giving you more control over the process. But the amount of control and freedom can be overwhelming. I sometimes compare PI to the mixer board in a recording studio: frightening in the beginning, but very powerful once you find your way.

Ok thanks. 

Would you mind sharing what your workflow for my image was? I would like to see if I can emulate it in Photoshop.

[wimvb]

26 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Ok thanks. 

Would you mind sharing what your workflow for my image was? I would like to see if I can emulate it in Photoshop.

Ok, from memory:

1. Crop to get any stacking artefacts out. You can still see some in Stu's version. The bottom and left edges need cropping

2. DBE, background extraction. Since you have a lot of vignetting, I used division as the correction method.

3. Background neutralisation

4. Colour calibration, using the globular cluster as a white reference.

5. Masked stretch. This is a stretch in 100 iterrations, masking the stars more as they get brighter. While this is mainly used to reveal weak nebulae, it also preserves any colour better. I also tried Mark Shelley's colour preserving stretch (arcsinh stretch), but that didn't work well for this particular image.

6. Curves transformation, darkening the background, with a increase in saturation

7. Extracted luminance data from the colour image, and used that as a mask, protecting the background

8. More colour saturation with the mask in place. Only the stars got an increase in colour.

9. Scaled down and saved as jpeg.

That's about it.

[Gerry Casa Christiana]

If you use the auto save file from DSS and convert it from 32bit to 16bit in photoshop you will get a lot more colour. Never save in DSS it always makes you lose colour. 

Gerry

[Galen Gilmore]

On July 13, 2018 at 04:07, Gerry Casa Christiana said:

If you use the auto save file from DSS and convert it from 32bit to 16bit in photoshop you will get a lot more colour. Never save in DSS it always makes you lose colour. 

Gerry

Ah thank you, is the autosave always a 32 bit or do I need to change a setting? I know that the manual save always auto converts to a 16bit.

[Anthonyexmouth]

If you want my opinion, Id say you need to add more boosters, the answer is always more boosters

[Galen Gilmore]

3 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

If you want my opinion, Id say you need to add more boosters, the answer is always more boosters

Finally some appreciation for my new profile pic. 

[Gerry Casa Christiana]

18 hours ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Ah thank you, is the autosave always a 32 bit or do I need to change a setting? I know that the manual save always auto converts to a 16bit.

Yes the auto save is always 32 bit. Just take it as it is. Don't save anything then open it in photoshop or whatever your using. In photoshop there is a option to convert it to 16 bit. Don't do it in DSS. More colour that way. 

[Galen Gilmore]

16 hours ago, Gerry Casa Christiana said:

Yes the auto save is always 32 bit. Just take it as it is. Don't save anything then open it in photoshop or whatever your using. In photoshop there is a option to convert it to 16 bit. Don't do it in DSS. More colour that way. 

Thanks, really helpful.