Affinity Photo OSC Dual Narrowband Workflow Help

I don't know about affinity photo, but as I read it you are just starting out. Why not try processing your data in RGB as is for now? The gold blue images you see are really more easily possible with mono narrowband. You can come pretty close with an OSC as I did some in the palette you describe with an OSC that come a bit closer to the gold blue you are describing but it took me a while to get there. If I where you I would start out with just your 'regular' stack for learning and then ask to do some more advanced editing of a bi color image. Splitting RGB is just the beginning;) 

For PI:
https://www.astrobin.com/forum/post/38477/

Yeah, I am just starting out.  I've had some success in processing RGB, but with limited data due to time/weather.  I was able to get 2 hours of data recently which is what prompted my little foray into trying a bi-color image.  Thanks for the link, I'll try to apply those steps to my workflow once I get my flats fixed and hopefully get some more lights to go with them.  Thanks!

The free software Siril has a built-in stacking option wich extracts Ha and O-III from a set of color images. Stretch both of the resulting images and finally combine them in Affinity using the JR macros.

I do the following post Stacking and calibration:

Crop
Remove gradients (Background extraction…
Background Neutralization
CC
Deconvolution
Mask Stretch
Starnet++ to remove the stars and creates 2 RGB images (Stars and Starless) name the image with Stars "Stars"
Then break up your image into RGB channels
Do a mask stretch again to get the levels fairly equal between the 3 images (RGB)
Rename R channel as Ha
Using PI I us Pixel Math and create a new image with the G and B channels named Oiii  G*.8+B*.2 is the formula. adjust the ratios to taste

now you have a Ha monochrome image and a Oiii monochrome image

Using a formula from and article by  The Coldest Nights website on Pixelmath and NB combinations use

PixelMath 
R=Ha
G=((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Ha + ~((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Oiii
B=Oiii
make sure a new image is selected and RGB is the color space (or you will get a very nice monochrome image)
Name it Starless
Run some noise reduction and sharpening to taste

Curves,  boost the Sat, S curve the RGB/K, Slight increase on R an B from the middle of the curve, Slight decrease green   Hit apply

Invert image
Run SCNR to reduce green
Invert image back to regular

Should have something to like at this point.
I typically hit the Stars image with just a touch of Sat from curves

then in Pixel Math

Stars+Starless     make sure a new image is selected


Enjoy

Perfect,  I am happy this info helps. This "recipe" works for just about everything. The same workflow is used with RGB (- a few steps). Now several steps can be very challenging. Deconvolution for example can take minutes, hours or days to get it just right. It will take time but I agree with you wanting to give PI another try. It is the Gold Standard of IP software. Once mastered, (i have been using PI for about 14 months) which will take sometime, your astrophotos will thank you for your efforts. Besides, an entire planet is using PI so you have a great resource in Astrobin and the knowledge its members process can help accelerate your learning curve with PI. 

Give that article a look from thecoldestnights.com website. Its a winner and will breakdown the "False Color" mapping of channels.  NB imaging is so much fun. It really is the area of astrophotography that allows the astrophotographer to play with HOW your image will look…  with RGB imaging you are competing with your own eyes for what this image looks like because that is how our eyes see an object. 

You are going to have so much fun with your images. 

Enjoy

Tim Ray:
Also I wanted to say something about Siril. It is, for lack of a better phrase, "PI-Lite". I know that might offend members of the community, but I say this with Peace and Love. A friend of mind is slowly reconnecting with the hobby and is using Siril. Now he and I speak almost daily and have found Siril to be a very powerful IP application! But what I like about the Siril app is that so much of the knowledge gained by using Siril ports directly into PI. The "feel" of the interface, the names of the processing routines, etc are shared with PI so any time spent with Siril is practically time spent with PI.  The price is right for Siril and it will do everything needed to produce False Color NB images from OSC cameras and much more. I don't feel comfortable recommending how good people should spend their money, so forgive me if I was pushing PI a little too much in my previous post. Any IP software, once "Mastered" generally will provide decent results...

Thanks 

Tim

Thanks Tim I'll definitely look at that article as well.  I have SiriL I just haven't done much with it as I preferred the layout of Affinity.  I think I'll give it another go before biting the bullet on PI.  Gold standard is right, but from what I gather on here--you get what you pay for.  It's such a vast program that I found it easy to get lost.  If I can get the kind of images I want from SiriL for now I'll be satisfied with that.  Between flying for a living, school, and kids it's tough to find the time even to image--not that the weather has been all that conducive to it lately.  I appreciate the advice!!

--Aaron

Tim Ray:
Good luck Aaron juggling all of that! It is a wonderful time of life. I am probably a few years ahead of you in the life cycle. Kids are grown and gone. A 1x grandparent upgrading to a 2x shortly around October. I drive over the road so I understand the lack of time and opportunity with the gear. While I am not familiar with Affinity. A process is a process. So the workflow most likely will port. Ask any questions at anytime, I wont be able to help specifically with the tools of Affinity but an image has to work its way thru some sort of workflow with measurable results at each step... Enjoy the journey...

Cheers,
Tim

Having spent 12 years driving for Fedex I feel your pain.  I had to get off the road.  I appreciate your advice and willingness to help!