Can someone please help to test my data

[Northernlight]

Hi all,

Been away from imaging for a while and i'm really struggling to get going again and at this moment in time i dont know if it's because my data is garbage or if my processing Technique is garbage.

So i'm would be very grateful if some kind sole could do a quick process of my LRGB subs for M31 and see what they get - Hopefully this will put me out of my misery and tell me if it's my data that bad or my processing technique.

Subs are located here on my google drive -->   https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Db-SATcY6jz6UERQFd_GVzYZxIuvsrCq?usp=sharing    (For some reason the link only seems to work if you cut and paste it into browser)

The 4 subs are combined masters from (15x RGB - 120s @2x bin) + (15x Lum = 300s @ 1x bin)

Many thanks in advance,

Rich.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Northernlight
bad link

[wornish]

Thanks for sharing your data, which looks very good to me.

This is a very quick integration in APP followed by a few tweaks in PS.

I am no expert so you can decide if its as good as your own processing.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by wornish
updated image

[Northernlight]

Hi Wornish,

Thanks for testing my data, the good news is that my subs are half-decent, so the bad news is my processing technique is rubbish. I'm busy recreating my workflow from scratch, so i'm hoping that having a fresh start and going through lots of different tutorials will allow me to pull together my own work-flow that actually works. Hopefully i'll be posting up my own effort later today to compare.

[Northernlight]

Wornish, how did you get the almost 3d effect on the galaxy. When i'm processing it comes out looking very flat, whilst your version looks like it has a bit of depth to it.

 

Cheers,

Rich

[wimvb]

What processing software do you use?

[wornish]

15 hours ago, Northernlight said:

Wornish, how did you get the almost 3d effect on the galaxy. When i'm processing it comes out looking very flat, whilst your version looks like it has a bit of depth to it.

 

Cheers,

Rich

I combined the files in APP and saved the stretched LRGB result as a tif.  Ideally I should have spent some time adjusting the balance between the channels in APP but for speed I treated them as all equal.  Then I loaded the tif file into Lightroom and tweaked the clarity, vibrance and then pushed the reds and blues quite a bit in the Color section.  Then moved to PS and adjusted the brightness/contrast and finally did some noise reduction.   I am certainly no expert and continue to learn a lot from the people on here.

[wimvb]

22 minutes ago, wornish said:

I combined the files in APP and saved the stretched LRGB

The advantage of LRGB is that you can control colour and detail separately. The lrgb combination is done at the end of the process.

This will allow L to be processed for detail and depth, and RGB for colour balance and saturation. 

[wornish]

Another version this time processed in PI.

 

[wimvb]

On 16/03/2020 at 00:05, Northernlight said:

The 4 subs are combined masters from (15x RGB - 120s @2x bin) + (15x Lum = 300s @ 1x bin)

A bit puzzled here: the lum master has about the same background median value as each RGB master. With 2.5 times longer exposure time, I would expect the Lum to be stronger.

Anyhoo, here's how far I pushed it in PixInsight.

[Northernlight]

Hi Wim,

I might have accidentally integrated the 120s lums instead of the 300s ones, as i had planned to try my hand at HDR integration at a lter date once i understood the basic, so i did 120 & 300s on the Lum Subs

It might explain why the image still looks a bit flat when i process it. I'm going to redo my calibration

[Northernlight]

Well i officially give up - I reside myself to the fact that i'm rubbish at image processing.  This is the best i could muster 

No matter how many guides i read - i'm really struggling to nail my workflow and get one that works for me and produces half decent results.

 

 

 

 

[carastro]

Don't give up, processing takes a while to learn and get better.  That's not a bad image at all.  If you used Photoshop I'd introduce you to my You tube tutorials.

Carole 

[Northernlight]

Well i tried to give the image another Whir - and this time i dialled back the processing a bit, so as not to make it look "Over-Processed".  I'm a lot happier with the 2nd attempt as it looks a lot more natural.