First attempt at image manipulation

[TheVelourFog]

Hi,

So I downloaded some free image data of 8x 8mins with 8 darks and bias each for the Orion Nebula at ISO800 to try and practice with before I even get a camera.  I got these free from a site who asked to be referenced for the data and genuinely cannot find it in my history now 😛 . I watched about 20 mins total of a tutorial video and took a crack at it which took probably a couple of hours total practice just to set a baseline to move from.  The attached are the before and after but I know 100% I could have made this a lot better with experience. The main issues I ran into were attempting to mask the nebula colours along with the star mask and subsequently getting proper contrast on the black of surrounding space. I made a total balls of the mask so if anyone has any pointers on an easy method to incorporate those colours into the original mask that would be great. 

In the photo you can still see a faint "halo" of redish/orangy  colour that was much more pronounced and widespread but in order to get rid of it I had to lose some of the nebula colour also. I am familiar with the method of adjusting the contrast,  curves (the "astro" curve etc) and levels and moving the dark slider to get some of the contrast back along with slight tweaks to the individual colours and even output levels but I found the one thing I constantly battled was getting the blacks black without affecting the rest which I guess is due to not masking correctly.  If someone could even point me towards a previous thread where this was covered I would greatly appreciate it  

Cheers,

Mark

[AstroMuni]

Which software are you using to do this? PhotoShop or Gimp - I am guessing?? There are several good tools out there that are made specifically for AP. eg. PixInsight, APP, Startools and Siril to name a few.

I use Siril which is free and you can read the tutorial for that here https://siril.org/tutorials/tuto-scripts/

[TheVelourFog]

Yeah forgot to mention I used deep sky stacker and GIMP for it. I have will have no problem sourcing  decent software in a couple of weeks but for now I am just using the free GIMP app since it was very easy to get. Would the others you mentioned be better yes? Literally never touched photo software in my life until yesterday but I am an extremely quick learner so if they are worth investing time into I can give them a bash. 

[bottletopburly]

I’d highly recommend Startools  free to try for as long as you like , you can’t save unless bought, but you can screen grab until you feel like you would buy the licence which is around £40 , probably the easiest Astro processing package to understand.

Edited August 20, 2021 by bottletopburly

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Another recommendation for Startools. The thing l like about is its duality of simplicity and complexity - due to its fairly large degree of automation, you can knock out a decent image in 10 minutes using mostly default settings, but equally, you can spend hours tweaking to perfect and bring out interesting features and detail.

[TheVelourFog]

Interesting. Thanks for the advice I will check it out later so and see how it goes

[geordie85]

Space isn't black, that's where almost every newbie makes a mistake. You're clipping the data which means that you're basically deleting data.

Look at other images and you'll see that the "blackness of space" is actually more like a dark grey.

Search these forums for data clipping or background clipping and you'll find a much better explanation and advice

[TheVelourFog]

To be fair I understood that concept just wasn't sure how to go about it with the tools themselves. My line of thought was that I am essentially removing any data present where the "black" should be while keeping the stars and colours of the nebula intact, thus resulting in a "blacker" surrounding area to contrast against and make it pop. I believe I know where I went wrong with it last time in addition to improper masking. All part of the learning curve anyway and I'm a quick learner anyway so I will refine the technique on my next run and see how it compares

[autonm]

On 21/08/2021 at 10:19, TheVelourFog said:

Interesting. Thanks for the advice I will check it out later so and see how it goes

StarTools 5 minute overview:
https://youtu.be/4r5WJeQuv78

 

[TheVelourFog]

Thanks for the link. I just saw this now after 2 weeks 😛  I am slowly refining the process and am getting there gradually. Attached are from my second attempts last week. Again, not my imaging data I got it from Astrobackyard where he gives it for free to practice with but is taken with gear I am considering buying over the next couple of years. 

[Pitch Black Skies]

34 minutes ago, TheVelourFog said:

Thanks for the link. I just saw this now after 2 weeks 😛  I am slowly refining the process and am getting there gradually. Attached are from my second attempts last week. Again, not my imaging data I got it from Astrobackyard where he gives it for free to practice with but is taken with gear I am considering buying over the next couple of years. 

Stunning 👌

[TheVelourFog]

Cheers Alan, Now all I need is the photography gear and I am ready to lose many a night trying to image correctly 😛