M16

[the rev]

I took an image of M16 on Friday, 30 x 60 seconds. I got some goo detail in the nebula, but the stars where all blown out. Can anyone tell me how I can tone them down a little from the big white blobs I have at present please.

I have photoshop CS for processing, although the images were stacked in astroart.

[Psychobilly]

Can you post the pic for us to have a look at please..

Peter...

[the rev]

Can't seem to ge it to upload. here is a place where a copy is.

Kate

[the rev]

Okay it did upload despite coming up with an error, although it is really small. If you click it you will get to the other site where it is.

Kate

[Psychobilly]

Have you tried having a look at using MartinB's method?

How to make stars smaller and sharper

There are some pretty pronounced halos on the brighter stars...

Peter...

[the rev]

Hadn't heard of him before, but will have a look.

Thanks.

kate

[Psychobilly]

Hi Kate...

There's a whole series of primers and tutorials on SGL they are spread around a few different sub forums but are usually fround as stickys at teh top of the thread lists...

The images aren't in the sticky for this one so I gave the link directly to Martins Website.

Peter...

[roundycat]

looks to me like a classic case of overdoing the stretching. There are techniques that will rid you of the big, blobby stars but it's generally best not to go there in the first place. The nebula detail is coming out well, try stretching from scratch again but without shifting the white point.

Dennis

[ollypenrice]

Or if you simply can't get it all right in one stretch - the nebula and the stars - do a different stretch for each then paste the star layer on top and erase all that isn't the stars before adjusting the opacity of the top layer to taste and flatteneing the image. Make sure that when you select the stars you do so with a well feathered edge to avoid visible boundaries.

From your post I was expecting the bloat to be worse. You have achieved good resolution in splitting that distinctive pair of adjacent doubles with a large and a small star in each pair.

Olly

[the rev]

Thank you for all your comments, I will have another try and see what I can achieve after reading some of the tips I've found.

Kate