OCD Reprocessing Disorder

Me when I *19th reprocessing of new data because I was 1 ADU off on the last processing* (it’s ruined)

SonnyE · Feb 3, 2026, 04:01 PM

Yeah. Just don’t get in the trap.

I don’t post process anything. I found back in my earliest days that the more fiddled with, the further away from reality things got. For example: Sharpening. It made things look so bad I finally stopped sharpening all together. I weened myself of the penchant of fiddling.

I simply shoot my stack of (the object) and remove a few images I don’t like. Last night’s stack got 5 Overhead Wires clipped from the front, and everything off the end, that were crummy images (Dawn burned). I’m stacking the ones that are decent right now. The end result gets saved as a jpg (web friendly format) and they’re ready for use.

I really don’t like my cake buried under inches of artificial frosting. Many think it is “Art”. I think it is BS to hide their inadequacies under gingerbread.

Get it right in the camera. Get your mount working to give you its best operation. Don’t fake it, Hollywood.

You have really interesting nonliner response in your sensor that your cake doesn’t even need to be stretched, just stacked and saved as jpg ;)

I process my imagery no less than 3 times before I arrive at a final image. Often times I’ll find parts of one version that I like, and other parts in another, blend it all together in pixelmath.

It’s an OCD thing, but if I don’t like it, I don’t publish the image.

SonnyE · Feb 3, 2026, 04:01 PM

Yeah. Just don’t get in the trap.

I don’t post process anything. I found back in my earliest days that the more fiddled with, the further away from reality things got. For example: Sharpening. It made things look so bad I finally stopped sharpening all together. I weened my self of the penchant of fiddling.

I simply shoot my stack of (the object) and remove a few images I don’t like. Last night’s stack got 5 Overhead Wires clipped from the front, and everything off the end, that were crummy images (Dawn burned). I’m stacking the ones that are decent right now. The end result gets saved as a jpg (web friendly format) and they’re ready for use.

I really don’t like my cake buried under inches of artificial frosting. Many think it is “Art”. I think it is BS to hide their inadequacies under gingerbread.

Get it right in the camera. Get your mount working to give you its best operation. Don’t fake it, Hollywood.

I don’t actually believe that the statement “get it right in the camera” has any meaning in this particular imaging technique. This is not film photography, photons are converted to data bits by a light sensitive CMOS or CCD chip that are then digitally converted into color images or b&w in a monochrome camera. The camera sensor captures a linear response that is skewed almost entirely to the left of the histogram, i.e. mostly black, and it must be stretched in some manner or there is no image. The camera sensor white balance/color mix the human eye would be most sensitive to will be meaningless in the night sky. Using narrow band filters further changes the white balance. Based on that, I don’t see any reason not to process the image data in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. Obviously a more pristine data set will yield a better final product, but in no way is this “hiding inadequacies under gingerbread”. No matter how you get an image, it is processed—whether the user manually tweaks the image in PI or Photoshop or SIRIL or whatever, or you just let the image be processed by the internal camera software. I’m seriously interested in how one can determine that an image is “final”—i.e. no further improvements are necessary.

Oscar H. · Feb 3, 2026, 08:53 PM

I process my stuff only one time

Thing is, I spend many hours doing it (days sometimes), undoing whatever mistakes I make along the way

Thanks Oscar, you have more patience than I do, but I like this concept. I always spend much more time processing an image than I spend on setting up the data collection—I don’t count the actual acquisition time since the system is out there in the dark running automatically while I’m sleeping.

Brian Puhl · Feb 3, 2026, 08:25 PM

I process my imagery no less than 3 times before I arrive at a final image. Often times I’ll find parts of one version that I like, and other parts in another, blend it all together in pixelmath.

I know the feeling! I’ve had up to five “final” images that I end up blending BUT even then I keep playing with the balances another half dozen times! My only “Astro OCD” med is some good whisky!

one helpful tip i’ve done is let the process take multiple days. 1st step is just pre-processing stuff, like blurx, gradient, spcc, etc. Then, do a couple curves, then walk away and do something else. come back in a different light, mindset, etc. look at the pic, is it overblown or need more work? if overblown, undo last step and try again. if good, then proceed and keep going.

Also, and i struggle with this myself, do not overprocess. Overprocess looks great in the heat of the moment. Then you save, put on your phone, post to socials / share it, then look at it and think “ugh, i need to fix this”. To help stop overprocessing, i do the multi day approach, and when i take my photo to Photoshop (not everyone does this but i do),i restrict myself to all sliders MUST be under 10, NOTHING over 10 on ANY slider. That has really, really helped me.

Scott Badger · Feb 4, 2026, 04:29 PM

Yeah, what looks great in the moment, can look embarrassing the next morning. On the other hand, sometimes I feel like giving up and moving on to a new target, but the next morning I look at where I left off and think, that’s not so bad……Anyhow, once I’m “finished”, I load the image into Google Docs so I can look at it on a variety of screens; phone, laptop, desktop, and 24” imac. Usually, it’s at least a week and several tweaks before I publish. Sometimes I get to a point where I’ve gone back and forth so much that even though I’m happy with the result, I’ll start over and hopefully get to the same point now that I know what I’m working towards, but with less processing.

Regarding processing, and manipulating the raw data, unless you’re using film you have to stretch the data to see anything other than a couple stars, and IMO stretching is more manipulation than any other processing we do i.e. there’s no such thing as ‘minimal’ DSO processing.

Cheers,
Scott

“what looks great in the moment, can look embarrassing the next morning”—that’s my constant companion in this arena….

SonnyE · Feb 4, 2026, 02:05 AM

Jim Medley · Feb 3, 2026, 09:50 PM

SonnyE · Feb 3, 2026, 04:01 PM

Yeah. Just don’t get in the trap.

I don’t post process anything. I found back in my earliest days that the more fiddled with, the further away from reality things got. For example: Sharpening. It made things look so bad I finally stopped sharpening all together. I weened my self of the penchant of fiddling.

I simply shoot my stack of (the object) and remove a few images I don’t like. Last night’s stack got 5 Overhead Wires clipped from the front, and everything off the end, that were crummy images (Dawn burned). I’m stacking the ones that are decent right now. The end result gets saved as a jpg (web friendly format) and they’re ready for use.

I really don’t like my cake buried under inches of artificial frosting. Many think it is “Art”. I think it is BS to hide their inadequacies under gingerbread.

Get it right in the camera. Get your mount working to give you its best operation. Don’t fake it, Hollywood.

I don’t actually believe that the statement “get it right in the camera” has any meaning in this particular imaging technique. This is not film photography, photons are converted to data bits by a light sensitive CMOS or CCD chip that are then digitally converted into color images or b&w in a monochrome camera. The camera sensor captures a linear response that is skewed almost entirely to the left of the histogram, i.e. mostly black, and it must be stretched in some manner or there is no image. The camera sensor white balance/color mix the human eye would be most sensitive to will be meaningless in the night sky. Using narrow band filters further changes the white balance. Based on that, I don’t see any reason not to process the image data in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. Obviously a more pristine data set will yield a better final product, but in no way is this “hiding inadequacies under gingerbread”. No matter how you get an image, it is processed—whether the user manually tweaks the image in PI or Photoshop or SIRIL or whatever, or you just let the image be processed by the internal camera software. I’m seriously interested in how one can determine that an image is “final”—i.e. no further improvements are necessary.

If I like what I get, without frittering and trying to make it something beyond what the camera captures, I really don’t care what you believe. I only have to please myself, actually.

Did you even look at my images? Probably not, heck you are still talking CCD cameras. Those were practically gone in 2013 when I was starting to venture into deep space photography. CMOS were clawing past CCD’s then. And came of age. Just like digital passed up film, CMOS passed up CCD’s, and one day these little phone sensor-based cameras like the See Stars will likely pass up our full frame or APS-C sensors.

I’m still waiting for somebody to actually make a true astronomy sensor that isn’t based on land/ terrestrial sensors, RGGB.

My reprocessing consists of taking pictures of the same victims year after year. Because conditions and equipment evolves. I did mono for a few years. But tired of it and went back to my OSC cameras so I could again peruse letting the image emerge from the light streaming down into my telescope.

If you want to be OSC about fiddling with your images, fine. I do not.

Thanks Sonny, I did look at your images. I was part of a group sharing equipment at Sierra Remote Observatory last year and the camera on the Planewave CDK14 was an FLI ML 16803, so there are still CCD cameras in use. I think we can agree to disagree, and if you like your images that’s great.

Jim Medley · Feb 4, 2026, 04:35 PM

Dave · Feb 4, 2026, 03:47 PM

one helpful tip i’ve done is let the process take multiple days. 1st step is just pre-processing stuff, like blurx, gradient, spcc, etc. Then, do a couple curves, then walk away and do something else. come back in a different light, mindset, etc. look at the pic, is it overblown or need more work? if overblown, undo last step and try again. if good, then proceed and keep going.

Also, and i struggle with this myself, do not overprocess. Overprocess looks great in the heat of the moment. Then you save, put on your phone, post to socials / share it, then look at it and think “ugh, i need to fix this”. To help stop overprocessing, i do the multi day approach, and when i take my photo to Photoshop (not everyone does this but i do),i restrict myself to all sliders MUST be under 10, NOTHING over 10 on ANY slider. That has really, really helped me.

I have created some drastically overcooked images, its so easy to do. Moderation in all things is probably a good mantra, if only I can live up to it.

I am the exact same way, i contribute mine to “noobiness”. I’m only a year into this hobby, at the beginning you overprocess the crap out of things to “make them pop”. Now, my artistic portion is about 30 different little tweaks. So, “cooking” each tweak to the max of right before it falls apart (which is what i would do), i have learned that little tweaks add up. If each tweak is 10, and I do 10 tweaks, that ends up 100. If each tweak is 100,and i do 10 tweaks, then i’m at 1000. (those numbers mean nothing but to illustrate additive “cookness” - yes, i made up that word). Also, if using Pixingsight, save the project when done so you can go back into it and undo steps. If Photoshop, they are saved inlayers, same concept of going back and undoing.

Regardless, it is inevitable that images will be reprocessed, over and over. Sometimes because you are not happy with the result (usually around the time of imaging), sometimes it is months later. The months later is usually, for me, because i learned a new method to process, or something new came out. At that time, i treat it as a brand new set of data, i don’t’ even look at the original, i start over and see what i can do.