Like a pig in ****...... my m45 reprocess (again)

[JohnP]

Hi All,

As you know I have been playing with reprocessing my m45 image recently & made some improvements over the version I published a year ago. Well as a part of the exercise I published my attempts on one of the forums & asked for opinions. Well to cut a long story short I started chatting with 'Mr Noel Carboni' who in case you don't know has amazing mage process capabilities. Anyway, he said he'd have a go at processing if I emailed him the raws... Wow!!! result is unbelievable.. Just shows what you can do with data if you know how to use Pshop properly (he does everything in Pshop).

The data was images I got at les Granges last year so it's good data (no calibration files at all). Most amazing thing for me is increase in size & how smooth it is. If you zoom in & look at centre blue/ orange star in middle you can see another much closer pair of stars that are totally obliterated in my process. Noel is also working on a new star diffraction prog & also sent me a version with spikes added. I am not normally a lover of these but I have to say I am impressed.. you can even see colour in the diffraction spikes.

Well I'm off to reprocess all my old data especially stuff from les granges....  

Anyway - just so it's clear my equipment & raw data - Noel Carboni process....

Cheers,  John


My attempt at reprocessing....


Without spikes (or just the natural ones)


With added spikes - compliments Noel Carboni

[Mike]

Wow!!! Just shows you that 90% of astrophotography is in the processing. As long as you get decent data it can be processed into fantastic images.

Did he give you a full breakdown of how he did it?

[JohnP]

He did but its about 1 1/2 pages long & I don't understand it all yet... I need to get to grips a bit more with Pshop. It was all done in Pshop by the way....

John

[Rocket Pooch]

like wow!

[JohnP]

good innit...! Need to go & redo all my other LG images...

[Daniel]

Just did a flick check on your original re-processe and this one, amazing, would love to hear what processing techniques he used on this. the one thing i want to get better at more than anything is retaining star colours.

Daniel
:O)

[RobertM]

That is pretty amazing!  I'd really like to see how that was done too, star colouration really is one of the most difficult aspects of post processing.

[MarkS]

A stunning re-process!  I'm also amazed at how the size has been increased.

Though I am not usually a fan of diffraction spikes, I think those new ones actually look almost genuine and in this particular image they add a certain dynamism.

Mark

[Carole]

Wonderful, sounds like a good subject for the next imaging workshop once you've got your head round it all John.

Carole

[JohnP]

Mark - it is pretty impressive....

I am happy to share the process details with all but I think it's best to do offline. I can tell you it's all done in Pshop. He imports fits in using fits liberator & a non-linear stretch then first thing he does (at least for my images which are only 640X480) is increased size by 400% using bicubic upsize. Then all subsequent processing is done at this size. Last thing he does (again for my image) was reduced by 50% so basically my image is 200% original size...

John

[Mike]

Can you post up YOUR original image please John?

[JohnP]

Mike I have added my image at top of thread - this was my best attempt prior to Mr Carboni getting involved.....

John

[Mike]

Cheers

[Fay]

John..what can I say, looks fantastic, please God give me a Photoshop brain implant

[JohnP]

Fay - you & me both... I'm not sure that everything he did was scientifically correct but not sure I am too bothered if you end up with a result like that....

John

[Fay]

I did have a little try at processing but got lost at first hurdle!

[Mac]

Fantastic,

you must post the details of how he did it,