Skipper Billy Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 Tonight was the first clear night since August - of course its a screaming full moon!!! So when life gives you lemons - make lemonade!!! I took a 2000 frame SER video using Sharpcap using RGB24 and 16bit RAW (same issue with both videos) - ran it through PIPP - then stacked the resulting TIFF's in Autostakkert - then processed the resulting single TIFF in both Registax and Photoshop. I can get the image reasonably sharp but there appears to be zero colour in it. In the past I have been able to boost the saturation iteratively in Photoshop to reveal the colours but I cannot get anything out of this image. Its a couple of years since I imaged the Moon so it could well be 'user error' but any help, guidance would be much appreciated. Its taken with a ZWO 178MC on a SW 72ED on a SW Star Adventurer I will post the processed image as a PNG and attach the unprocessed TIFF if anyone wants to have a play. Thanks in advance!!!! raw 16 ser file_pipp auto raw16_lapl4_ap155.tif rgb24 ser file_rgb24 pipp auto_lapl4_ap131.tif 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skipper Billy Posted December 19, 2021 Author Share Posted December 19, 2021 I am 99% sure that these two images were made with the same equipment a year or two ago so it must be me doing something stupid !!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Drew Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 The lunar phase is different, could the extra brightness of the full Moon wash out the colour? 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bomberbaz Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 (edited) was debayer unticked in debayer raw image files in input options or the debayer monochrome files option. Sorry best I can offer cos not really my area. Edited December 19, 2021 by bomberbaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vlaiv Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 I can get the color. It's not easy - but when you over do everything - well color starts to pop out. Maybe even too much color - there is blue rim on one side showing ED doublet is not color free. I did not sharpen - just color thingy in Gimp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ONIKKINEN Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 Plenty of colour (too much in this one). Took a lot of vibrance and saturation boosts though but it is there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skipper Billy Posted December 20, 2021 Author Share Posted December 20, 2021 OK - so how did you get that and from which image ?? 'Perplexed' !!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ONIKKINEN Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 15 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said: OK - so how did you get that and from which image ?? 'Perplexed' !!!!! The left one, which would be the RAW16 capture if im not mistaken. Did these in Photoshop: Curves - > options -> Find dark and light colors with 0% clipping for color balance. This is the same option as "auto color" but auto color clips 0,10% of darks and lights so this way you can do the same but without the clipping. Im sure someone whos better at Lunar processing has a rock-solid method for colorbalancing, but i always struggle with a subjective approach with sliders, so just use the Find dark and light colors method. Then just saturation and vibrance until happy. If you try to saturation boost first without colorbalance you just get a monobrown looking Moon that you might think has no colour. Also some sharpening with TopazDenoise etc, but unrelated to colours at this point. It did take a lot more saturating than what i have taken with my scope so not sure if there was some problems with capture, but then again i have shot the moon with a 200mm F4.2 newtonian, so plenty of signal left and right in even 1ms exposures. Could be just the aperture difference really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Felias Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 Had a go myself (been cloudy here for weeks), and I found @ONIKKINEN's advice spot on. It's about the white balance before increasing saturation/vibrance. For comparison, this is the best I get when using the auto white balance in PS, And this is what I get by choosing the dark and light references in the curves tool myself: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bomberbaz Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 10 hours ago, vlaiv said: I can get the color. It's not easy - but when you over do everything - well color starts to pop out. Maybe even too much color - there is blue rim on one side showing ED doublet is not color free. I did not sharpen - just color thingy in Gimp. Would you mind if I asked you to outline your process please vlaiv, I use gimp for processing images and I can't get it anything like your effort. I am obviously using the wrong tools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vlaiv Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 1 minute ago, bomberbaz said: Would you mind if I asked you to outline your process please vlaiv, I use gimp for processing images and I can't get it anything like your effort. I am obviously using the wrong tools. I just played around with things. I used three controls: 1. Adjusted gamma using levels to 2.2 (move middle slider to the left until number underneath it says 2.2) 2. Changed color temperature to make it less yellow 3. I increased saturation insanely Not sure in which order I did all of that - it might even be in order I listed them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skipper Billy Posted December 20, 2021 Author Share Posted December 20, 2021 BINGO !!! Many thanks for all your help everyone. Setting the correct white balance made a huge difference - it has turned a bowl of custard into a passable image!! Thank you!!!! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bomberbaz Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 1 hour ago, vlaiv said: I just played around with things. I used three controls: 1. Adjusted gamma using levels to 2.2 (move middle slider to the left until number underneath it says 2.2) 2. Changed color temperature to make it less yellow 3. I increased saturation insanely Not sure in which order I did all of that - it might even be in order I listed them I have never done the gamma before, turns out it is nicely hidden in levels, 🙄 😅 thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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