Been looking at some 'old' images & have decided that a lot of my colour DSO's lack star colour so I have been playing with a few techniques to improve colour. Thought I'd try the m45 image I took in Les Granges last year. Looking at the original the stars show NO colour - It wasn't an easy image to play with as the stars in m45 are so bright so the RGB images all had very large stars - especially green channel which had big halo's.. The newly processed image (which is essentially an LLRGB) has some better coloured stars & also starting to show a hint of the brown nebulous gas bottom left. Anyhow would appreciate any comments crap or otherwise...
Cheers, John
Newly Processed:
(http://www.jpastronomy.co.uk/graphics/oas/m45llrgb.jpg)
Original:
(http://www.jpastronomy.co.uk/graphics/oas/m45.jpg)
John,
That makes a big difference. It now has more contrast and much better colour but without going over the top. It's now an image that grabs the atttention (as the Pleiades should!) instead of being slightly bland.
Well done. Trouble is, you'll have your work cut out re-visiting the rest of your collection now!
Mark
OK, no technical comment, just an opinion, contrast is really good with black blacks, original looked a bit washed out.
I like it.
Quoteyou'll have your work cut out re-visiting the rest of your collection now!
Oi Mark - you saying all Johns old work is Duff ?
Mmmmm Duff
Talk about a picking a tough one to start on !!!
I'd say that the colouration is a great improvement however it's been at the cost of slightly increased star sizes. If you could keep the original star sizes and get the same colour effect then the image would look even better.
I like them both, they show lots of nebulous detail but I prefer the top one because the colours look just right.
Hope that helps
Robert
Thks Mark, Mick & Robert for your comments. Robert - you are dead right the size of stars in the RGB are bigger than those in the L & as a result of the way I have processed the image the overall star size has increased - I will have to try reducing star sizes before combining with L.
Cheers, John.
PS - Just had a quick go at my Propeller image from last DSC - again slightly larger stars but more colour & less noise...
Reprocessed:
(http://www.jpastronomy.co.uk/graphics/oas/prop-llrgb.jpg)
Original:
(http://www.jpastronomy.co.uk/graphics/oas/propeller-aug09.jpg)
Don't get cocky ;)
Great improvement John.
You should do a little workshop at either of the next 2 imaging sessions or at one of the monhtly meetings. Would only need to be 10 mins.
Definitely a small workshop - spread the knowlege :)
The reprocessed prop has a lot more star colour. I like the M45, but if I had not seen the new one, which is more vibrant , then I would like the original as well.
Thks Fay - My main effort was to try & increase star colour. I picked a tough subject - m45 isn't easy due to size of stars - it's much easier to bring colour out in stars that aren't near saturation....
Anyway it was a good exercise - John
it is worth having a reprocess, keeps your hand in John, as you say
Great re-proccesses, would love to hear what techniques you used to maintain the colour over your older versions?
Daniel
:O)