M45 revisited

[mickw]

Never really happy with the processing so I thought I'd dig out M45 from Rother Valley last October give another go.
Still Burgess 91, Canon 350D (the pre destruction model) unguided, this time processed CS3



The original's here for comparison

http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/albums/userpics/10049/normal_M45_800_15x120_DSS_CS3.jpg

Was it worth the effort ?

[RobertM]

I think so.  You've picked up a gradient towards the bottom right but it's much better balanced and there's much more nebulosity showing.

[mickw]

Thanks Robert, I think the gradient is amp glow I thought I'd killed it on the tif but it seems to have sneaked back in the jpg

[PhilB]

You've certainly pull out more of the wispy stuff. I like it

[MarkS]

It was definitely worth the trouble Mick - you've pulled out a lot of extra faint nebulosity.  Nice one!

Mark

[mickw]

Thanks for that, wasn't too sure about it being overdone.

[Carole]

Looks much better than  the original process Mick, much more nebulosity showing through.

Carole

[mickw]

OK,question time.
I've just had my first attempt at Gradient Removal using Layer Mask 
Process - Created duplicate layer, cloned out the bright stars and nebulosity but left the bright area in bottom right corner (which I think is amp glow), then flattened using Difference then a final tweak in curves to bring up the nebulosity.

Did I do it right ?
Have I overdone it ? (I think yes)
Is it an improvement ?
Answers on a postcard 

[Fay]

I think you have lost a bit of the nebulosity, on the second one,  Mick, although your first reprocess was very good

[mickw]

Hmm inclined to agree, I've re-read the "how to" and think I know where I went wrong - I'll give it another go before I lose interest  

*I think I should have a bit lot more practice with this Layers malarky - I can see the difference it makes but am clueless about how to control it 

[The Thing]

Hi Mick,

I've been playing around with 'Olympus Background Subtraction Toolkit' which I think is aimed at users of Olympus microscopes who want to remove gradients from their images. Downside is it doesn't like TIFs. I am going to give it a go with tonights results and will post before and after images.

[mickw]

Sounds promising