The NAN (NGC7000) HaRGB - June 2020

[geoflewis]

This was meant to be an LHaRGB image, but after about 10 hours struggling to blend the L, I've given up, so going with just HaRGB. The luminance made a pigs ear of the stars. I tried removing the stars, but the L still brought out halos around the RGB stars and really added nothing to the rest of the image.

The image comprises 2 hours Ha (12x10m) and 1 hour (12x5m) each RGB. Almost all processing was done in ImagesPlus, but I couldn't resist having a play in Affinity Photo as highly recommended by @silentrunning (thanks John). I don't really know what I'm doing in Affinity, so my playing there was confined to some colour tweaks, a mild unsharp mask and running the dodge brush along the wall to highlight it bit more (just because I could). I tried Topaz Denoise AI, but didn't like what it did so I backed that out. My initial thoughts on Affinity are that the more I learn, then the more I can see it serving me well.

Comments, critique, feedback, etc., welcome as always please.

 

[x6gas]

Really nice image Geof.  I've been playing with Affinity Photo too but have hit a couple of issues: sample points only sampling one pixel for example, but also the relative crudeness of the macro function versus PS actions.  I've bought a licence but don't feel I can completely jump ship just yet...

[MarkAR]

Very nice Geof.

[geoflewis]

4 minutes ago, x6gas said:

Really nice image Geof.  I've been playing with Affinity Photo too but have hit a couple of issues: sample points only sampling one pixel for example, but also the relative crudeness of the macro function versus PS actions.  I've bought a licence but don't feel I can completely jump ship just yet...

Thanks. Well you must be way ahead of me, because I have no idea what you mean about sample points and macros , but then I was never much of a PS user either...

[geoflewis]

1 minute ago, MarkAR said:

Very nice Geof.

Thanks Mark

[Guest]

Lovely image and definition Geof 👌

[geoflewis]

13 minutes ago, Chris Wright said:

Lovely image and definition Geof 👌

Thanks Chris.

[don4l]

The image has a lovely natural feeling.  I've never done a proper RGB / NB image, but I am certainly going to give it a go.

 

I've also been playing with Affinity Photo, and I've now bought a copy.   I'm still using Gimp for some tasks,  but Affinity is now my main processing tool.

[geoflewis]

6 minutes ago, don4l said:

The image has a lovely natural feeling.  I've never done a proper RGB / NB image, but I am certainly going to give it a go.

 

I've also been playing with Affinity Photo, and I've now bought a copy.   I'm still using Gimp for some tasks,  but Affinity is now my main processing tool.

Thanks Donal,

Blending RGB with Ha is tricky and try as I might (and boy I tried), I just could not also add the luminance. This is the first astro photo where I've used Affinity, but only light touches. Usually 95% of my processing is with ImagesPlus and maybe 5% PS, but I decided to give Affinity a go instead of PS. It took a little experimentation, but I'm gradually learning how navigate it.

Cheers, Geof

[don4l]

2 hours ago, geoflewis said:

Thanks Donal,

Blending RGB with Ha is tricky and try as I might (and boy I tried), I just could not also add the luminance. This is the first astro photo where I've used Affinity, but only light touches. Usually 95% of my processing is with ImagesPlus and maybe 5% PS, but I decided to give Affinity a go instead of PS. It took a little experimentation, but I'm gradually learning how navigate it.

Cheers, Geof

I've been following lots of the youtube tutorials, and they do seem to be very good.  There is very little Astro related material, but I am learning a lot about image processing in general. In particular, i am finding it very good at cosmetic stuff, like removing gradients, background noise reduction, and selective sharpening.  I can already do these jobs in Gimp, but they are much, much easier in Affinity.  Another area that I've had success with is in colour tweaking narrowband images.

Your problem with adding the Lum may simply that there isn't any more "information" that it can usefully add???

[geoflewis]

3 minutes ago, don4l said:

Your problem with adding the Lum may simply that there isn't any more "information" that it can usefully add???

That’s quite possible as I didn’t shoot as much as I’d planned. I really just wanted it as a sharpened layer for the ‘wall’ region, but I had issues with different star sizes so the stars were rubbish. I can’t believe that I spent the best part of 8 hours reworking the data over and over again, but I hate to be defeated. I ended up running a high pass filter in ImagesPlus on the combined HaRGB, then a mild Unsharp Mask in Affinity, so I got there without the luminance.

Like you, I’ve been through hours of Affinity tutorials and even found a few astro ones. I thought the Dodge Brush tool looked good so gave that a try to enhance the wall and thought it turned ok 👍.