M57 Ring Nebula Re Edit..

[Greg]

Managed to get some Astro plugins for Photoshop CS2..Experimenting at the moment.

If they're anygood i'll do a review..

Let me know..

PS Plugin Image...

Original image ...Just a normal tweak in PS

The first is better..Me thinks..

You can automatically remove noise, do dark frame subtraction...

Hang on i'll copy and paste it...I'm too tired to type! Just finished nights!

Soft Color Gradient Removal - Remove a color gradient across the image

Hard Color Gradient Removal - Remove a more severe color gradient

Light Pollution Removal - Remove light pollution gradient

Select Brighter Stars - Select stars in your image for further processing

Make Stars Smaller - Make bloated stars smaller, bring out DSOs

Less Crunchy More Fuzzy - smooth oversharpened images, bring out star color

Space Noise Reduction - Noise reduction for the darker areas of the image

Deep Space Noise Reduction - Noise reduction only in the darkest parts

Color Blotch Reduction - Remove only color noise, leaving fine detail intact

Reduce Small Blue/Violet Halos - Desaturates and darkens halos around stars

Reduce Large Blue/Violet Halos - Desaturates and darkens halos around stars

Local Contrast Enhancement - Increase contrast between dark and light

B&W -> Ha False Color - Convert to color as through Hydrogen Alpha filter

B&W -> Ha False Color Black Space - As above but with blacker deep space

B&W -> OIII False Color - Convert to color as through Oxygen III filter

B&W -> OIII False Color Black Space - As above but with blacker deep space

Star Diffraction Spikes Tiny Stars - Put diffraction spikes on most stars

Star Diffraction Spikes Small Stars - Put diffraction spikes on many stars

Star Diffraction Spikes Medium Stars - Put diffraction spikes on larger stars

Star Diffraction Spikes Fat Stars - Put diffraction spikes on largest stars

Astro Frame - Add a background color border with room for caption

The following actions can be applied after a main action above has been run:

...As Layer On Top - Make 2 layers, action results above the original

...As Layer Underneath - Make 2 layers, action results below the original

...Per Selection Only - Restricts results to the area selected before

[Greg]

PS... If I send someone the instructions can you show me how to do it properly...I'm just hitting buttons [removed word] nilly!!! :shock:

[MartinB]

Hey Greg, you've discovered Noel's Actions. They are a great set of tools. I use them loads although you have to experiment. With practice you start to sus out what works and what doesn't. It depends a lot from image to image. Your re-edit is smootherbut you've lost the red and the elongated shape.

I had a play with the original using photoshop. Lassoed the ring to select it so that changes weren't applied to the background stars. Then selected curves and used the red channel to move the curve up a little. This brought out the red a little whilst preserving the blue. Then applied a small amount of gaussian blur. I then selected the inverse of my lasoo selection so that I could brighten up the background stars. I then used Noels space noise reduction tool which provides a really nice additional smoothing.

It's a good image Greg! Think that was one of your Astro BBQ ones wasn't it?

[MartinB]

oops wrong one. this is what I should have sent - a bit less red!!

Could be smoothed further with the space noise reduction action but I think you start to loose detail. Also suffering cos I keep saving the jpeg which starts to make it grainy!

[Greg]

Thanks for the tips Martin, as you say i'm still experimenting at the moment..

Yes it was a BBQ one.

Do you use MaxDSLR???

[Rob]

Thats a great effort, nice one.

Rob

[Greg]

I'm still trying to get the hang of PS...

Can any one reccommend an astro related PS book???

[Jamie]

Photoshop for the astro photographer

By

Jerry Lodriguss

[MartinB]

No Greg, I'm a web cam and soon to be CCD man.

[Greg]

Thanks Jamie...

[MartinB]

Heres a link to the processing page on his website. Very useful

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/TOC_DIG.HTM

[Kain]

I was having a little play with this earler on PS..

I managed to brighten it enough to see the central star, though the image looked awful!

Kain