Not thrilled with my work flow

[69boss302]

Ill start out by saying Im VERY new to this and am by no means any good at it      Last night I spent some time on horsehead/flame nebulae and stacked it in DSS and  processed it through pixinsight.  I have watched dozens of youtube videos on it and they have helped a lot, however my end result isnt as good as it should be I dont think. This is an example of what I got last night after all was said and done. I think about 4.5 hours of lights, stacked with darks/flats/bias etc.   If I look  at reference pictures of this, its not as 'rust red' colored, the thin nebulosity is more dramatic on others, and they just seem more overall pleasing to the eyes. 

Gear listed in my sig.. this was 57 (I think) 300 sec lights.  I saved the tiff out of DSS as 32 bit and used that, not its autosave. I included it here in case anyone wants to play.

Thank you for any pointers!

Bob

 

 

Horsehead 32bit.TIF

Edited December 13, 2021 by 69boss302

[Clarkey]

I had a quick look at your data but it is a bit strange. There are some strange shapes on the TIF and I could not get anything to show up when the data was stretched. Might just be something odd with the file download.

Tried again with different software and managed to open. I did a very quick process in Startools - which I don't normally use for nebulae - the result is below. To be honest I do not think it is that different to your picture above. I have not done any star reduction - just a bog standard process.

You could easily add more colour, but I think the more 'natural' subdued colours are nicer.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Clarkey
Added new picture.

[powerlord]

I think it looks good. Maybe could pull more blue out in the nebula under the head. If u want more rusty colour, take some green out. Don't use PI, but I think it's call SCNR process?

And don't be afraid to play with curves on individual colours (rgb or cym) to get the colour you want.

 

[69boss302]

Thank you both very much, I appreciate your input and the time you spent.