Photoshop workflow help!

Definitely check out Siril. It's free, and it's an excellent from stacking to processing. I use it, then do finishing touches in Photoshop.  Nico has some videos on it. Deep Space Astro on youtube has a ton of videos on Siril. 

Delta Astrophotography does several Photoshop tutorials, as does Astrobackyard.

These are the four main channels I've watched for processing tutorials that don't solely use Pixinsight.

I admire your dedication Heather, this is what I think AstroBin is all about! Your setup is compared to many many others here so much more difficult to deal with. In order to judge if your data or your processing is the problem, it would be interesting to have a copy of your data to see if others can create better images out of them. When you look at my page and go back to 2018 you will see VERY similar images that you have on your gallery. Yes, with today's processing tools I could spiff them up, but they will not be as good as my most recent ones ever, no matter how well I process them. Maybe another good example is this image by Matt (https://www.astrobin.com/e1a72z/). Look at my comment chain with him, he showed his progress wonderfully in the comparison images.

My personal opinion by reading your post: Yes, you will need to stay low in exposure times since you do not guide and have an alt-az mount. The camera should be fine, especially in the winter time since it is not a cooled camera!!! Galaxies with this method are tough to show off. I believe if you aim for some interesting nebula targets, it would be much better. BUT ... then you will need narrowband filters to make them really shine.

I could tell you now what you should get with your setup situation, but maybe this is for another time. What you could get so far is actually more than I ever thought you could! So don't give up, and with the years (yes, (un)fortunately it takes years) you will be literally in heaven.

Uwe

I'm a relative newbie also, and I highly recommend Siril, use for most of my processing, relying on Photoshop only for final adjustments. There are excellent tutorials out there for Siril.

Heather,

I wish I could offer you a decent hand here, but my set-up differs too much from yours for me to be of much use. I have been in this game for only a few years myself, now, and frankly, I wouldn't have tried it without PI! Its rich tool-set is really what you need (and a lot of time to learn how to use it) to get the most out of your data. I'd put it well ahead of any gear purchase when you next consider an upgrade. What you have achieved to date, however, is a very creditable suite of images, despite your misgivings re their "artificial-ness".

My main reason for responding to your call for help, though, is to commend you on your enthusiasm and perseverence. I have decided to follow your efforts as they are an inspiration for me, personally.

I wish you success in this demanding pasttime,
Paul.

Paul Lloyd:
Heather,

I wish I could offer you a decent hand here, but my set-up differs too much from yours for me to be of much use. I have been in this game for only a few years myself, now, and frankly, I wouldn't have tried it without PI! Its rich tool-set is really what you need (and a lot of time to learn how to use it) to get the most out of your data. I'd put it well ahead of any gear purchase when you next consider an upgrade. What you have achieved to date, however, is a very creditable suite of images, despite your misgivings re their "artificial-ness".

My main reason for responding to your call for help, though, is to commend you on your enthusiasm and perseverence. I have decided to follow your efforts as they are an inspiration for me, personally.

I wish you success in this demanding pasttime,
Paul.

Thank you so much for your kind words!! That means so much to me. I absolutely love how supportive the astrophotography community can be. That little bit of encouragement and praise helps a newbie keep going when it seems like EVERYTHING is going wrong and there’s so much impossible stuff to still learn. Seriously, why did I have to get obsessed with such a frustrating and expensive hobby? Crochet is definitely way better for mental health. 😂

I wish you clear skies, friend!

I use PI for my calibration, field flattening and color balance.  I usually stretch in PI because theirs works a little better than PS.  All other work is in Photoshop.    As to backgrounds do levels on each channel separately.  If you have a color cast you can fix that by running the black slider to the shoulder of each colors histogram.  Then adjust the center slider for each color to balance the mid tone color cast.  That has to be done by eye mostly .  The white slider can be moved to the tail of each color, but do with caution as some objects have more of an me color than the others.

Now your background is hopefully dark gray.  If it has a cast use the saturation tool to desaturate the background.  Adam Block has a great  tutorial on this.  It involves masks but is really easy.  Now run a noise removal program. I use Noise Exterminator  (PS version) plugin for this.  Now do a levels again and tighten up the black (left) slider.  If your object looks dim move the center slider to brighten it up.  Don’t mess with the left or right sliders at this point.  There are other tricks you can use to sharpen or enhance color Adams tutorials cover all that as well.

Good Luck

John

Heather Charron:

Paul Lloyd:
Heather,

I wish I could offer you a decent hand here, but my set-up differs too much from yours for me to be of much use. I have been in this game for only a few years myself, now, and frankly, I wouldn't have tried it without PI! Its rich tool-set is really what you need (and a lot of time to learn how to use it) to get the most out of your data. I'd put it well ahead of any gear purchase when you next consider an upgrade. What you have achieved to date, however, is a very creditable suite of images, despite your misgivings re their "artificial-ness".

My main reason for responding to your call for help, though, is to commend you on your enthusiasm and perseverence. I have decided to follow your efforts as they are an inspiration for me, personally.

I wish you success in this demanding pasttime,
Paul.

Thank you so much for your kind words!! That means so much to me. I absolutely love how supportive the astrophotography community can be. That little bit of encouragement and praise helps a newbie keep going when it seems like EVERYTHING is going wrong and there’s so much impossible stuff to still learn. Seriously, why did I have to get obsessed with such a frustrating and expensive hobby? Crochet is definitely way better for mental health. 😂

I wish you clear skies, friend!

Ah! But what is life but a challenge, and our pasttimes should reflect this, too. Save crochet for the nursing home phase of your life. You're doing fine, and I expect you will look back on this period with fondness, and be ready there to help another newbie.

On a philosophical note (us oldies get this way, so turn off if you like): I recently attended an photo exhibition which included a gallery of images done by an acquaintance of mine. While he had prices on all of them, I suspect very few would have sold. That made me start to think: while the images showed a wide range of subjects, pictorial through to deep sky, they all would seem rather dry to the average viewer - so why do we do it? I think that it's mostly for ourselves. Like any pasttime, it's the challenge of attempting something demanding, overcoming the obstacles, and getting a result that you are pleased with (notice I didn't say satisfied with) that keeps us interested, involved and contributing outside our normal lives. So, the take-away message I'm trying to say is: ignore the polite interest of others, or the "I can find better on the Internet" comments, it's the challenge, the ensuing journey, and the sense of achievement at the end that you are doing this for.

So, clear skies, and keep forging ahead,
Paul.

PS Thanks for becoming a follower of mine. I appreciate it. Being a Southern Hemisphere dweller, I'll be putting up over time a whole melange of targets that you northern folk just can't see. I hope you and others find them interesting. My next target I hope to nab is The Pavo Galaxy (NGC 6744) in RGB & Ha. They're predicting reasonably clear nights for the next few, so wish me luck.

Search OSC Photoshop processing on YouTube.  There are a bunch of really helpful videos, especially Trevor Jones and AstroStace.  I have not dived into PI yet, but PS gets r (and better results)  with practice.

Paul Lloyd:

Heather Charron:

Paul Lloyd:
Heather,

I wish I could offer you a decent hand here, but my set-up differs too much from yours for me to be of much use. I have been in this game for only a few years myself, now, and frankly, I wouldn't have tried it without PI! Its rich tool-set is really what you need (and a lot of time to learn how to use it) to get the most out of your data. I'd put it well ahead of any gear purchase when you next consider an upgrade. What you have achieved to date, however, is a very creditable suite of images, despite your misgivings re their "artificial-ness".

My main reason for responding to your call for help, though, is to commend you on your enthusiasm and perseverence. I have decided to follow your efforts as they are an inspiration for me, personally.

I wish you success in this demanding pasttime,
Paul.

Thank you so much for your kind words!! That means so much to me. I absolutely love how supportive the astrophotography community can be. That little bit of encouragement and praise helps a newbie keep going when it seems like EVERYTHING is going wrong and there’s so much impossible stuff to still learn. Seriously, why did I have to get obsessed with such a frustrating and expensive hobby? Crochet is definitely way better for mental health. 😂

I wish you clear skies, friend!

Ah! But what is life but a challenge, and our pasttimes should reflect this, too. Save crochet for the nursing home phase of your life. You're doing fine, and I expect you will look back on this period with fondness, and be ready there to help another newbie.

On a philosophical note (us oldies get this way, so turn off if you like): I recently attended an photo exhibition which included a gallery of images done by an acquaintance of mine. While he had prices on all of them, I suspect very few would have sold. That made me start to think: while the images showed a wide range of subjects, pictorial through to deep sky, they all would seem rather dry to the average viewer - so why do we do it? I think that it's mostly for ourselves. Like any pasttime, it's the challenge of attempting something demanding, overcoming the obstacles, and getting a result that you are pleased with (notice I didn't say satisfied with) that keeps us interested, involved and contributing outside our normal lives. So, the take-away message I'm trying to say is: ignore the polite interest of others, or the "I can find better on the Internet" comments, it's the challenge, the ensuing journey, and the sense of achievement at the end that you are doing this for.

So, clear skies, and keep forging ahead,
Paul.

PS Thanks for becoming a follower of mine. I appreciate it. Being a Southern Hemisphere dweller, I'll be putting up over time a whole melange of targets that you northern folk just can't see. I hope you and others find them interesting. My next target I hope to nab is The Pavo Galaxy (NGC 6744) in RGB & Ha. They're predicting reasonably clear nights for the next few, so wish me luck.

Saving this conversation for those tough nights when I need that bit of positivity to remind me why I love this so much. Thank you! 

PS I can’t wait to see them! I’m in Texas on the gulf coast and we just weathered a tropical storm and a hurricane. I’m pretty sure I caused them by purchasing a new guide scope and camera.

David Foust:
Heather,

I second all the comments for Siril. It takes a second to learn the workflow, but once you get the hang of it, it's a really great tool to get you 80-90% of the way there and then into Photoshop for the finishing touches. My workflow is typically like this:

1. Standard OSC Preprocessing Script in Siril gets things all stacked nicely.
2. Background Extraction to eliminate gradients
3. Photometric Color Correction correct color (it doesn't have to do too much with the Triband filter)
4. Starnet Star Removal in Siril (If it works as needed, depends on the target)
5. Asinh transformation on the starless image (usually a setting of 150 does the trick)
6. Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch on the starless image, usually one or two passes
7. Linear stretch on the starless image (Black Point Shift)
8. Save as 16 bit .tif and open in Photoshop
9. (Optional) Use Spot Healing to smooth out artifacts from large, bright starts during star removal. I usually use a circle size that's 2-3x the diameter of what I want to "heal," and then reduce the hardness to 50% or so to help it blend better.
10. Run Noise Exterminator (usually 80% NR and 25 detail)
11. Run APF-R tool (Absolute Point of Focus... similar to BlurXterminator, but for photoshop.) Select result that feels best.
12. (Skip this and go to 14 for large DSOs/Nebula that don't have much background.) For smaller DSOs and most galaxies, select the DSO with the lasso tool to create a mask.
1. Go to "Select and Mask" and increase the "feather" to a radius of 10-30px to help your adjustments blend.)
2. Open Hue/Saturation Adjustment. Increase saturation to taste.


13. Use the Magic Wand tool to select and create a mask for the background (you may need to click a few different spots to find which provides the best selection) and then open Hue/Saturation adjustment. Reduce saturation to 0 (this reduces any color noise)
1. (Optional) If background is still a bit splotchy, run Astroflat Pro.


14. Open the Camera Raw Filter tool and make adjustments to taste.
1. Light - Increase exposure slightly if needed, increase contrast, push up highlights slightly, reduce shadows slightly (or increase if faint nebulosity present), increase whites slightly, reduce blacks slightly
2. Color - Increase saturation a bit
3. Effects - Increase Clarity a bit
4. Detail - Some slight Noise Reduction up to 25-30. Push Detail and Contrast sub-sliders to 100. I've typically not liked results from the color noise reduction slider, so I leave that alone.


15. Save the .tif file and open the newly saved .tif in Siril. Click save as and save the file as a 32-bit .fit file.
16. Go to Star Processing>Star Recomposition. Open the newly saved starless .fit file for the starless image, and open the starmask result file for the stars. Stretch the Starmask file to 6, click apply, and then click ok.
17. Save Recomposed image as .png, bounce back over to Photoshop, one quick final check, and then save as .PNG again to reduce file size.

And that's it! Depending on the image, I can usually knock this out in 20 minutes or less. I'm sure I could spend much much more time really locking in the details, but I don't have all the time in the world, and this process gets me pretty good results!

Thank you so much!!!! I’m saving this to help get me started. I really appreciate it!!

Hi Heather. For Photoshop..  here are a couple other  channels I watched, (Besides Nico's), to learn tricks and process:  https://www.youtube.com/@AVAstronomy     https://www.youtube.com/@AstroBackyard


Cheers,

Jay

Randall Magnuson:

Heather Charron:
Hello! I’m a newbie, started in Oct 2023, and have been doing my best with Photoshop (it’s free with my work and I can’t afford PI yet). I learned a lot from Nico’s tutorials on his channel, Nebula Photos, but I’m wondering if there are any other resources out there that I could refer to? Most of the popular processing tutorials online use PI and it’s just not in my budget right now. Any YouTube channels, forums, guides, etc would be SO VERY much appreciated!! 

Right now, I’m really struggling with my messy backgrounds and trying to get more detail. Obviously there’s a lot I’m also learning with the actual image acquisition. But I’m finding myself clipping the backgrounds and ending up with fuzzy artificial looks galaxies. I know I’m WAY over processing kinda bad data already and there has to be a better way to handle this!  

You can see how bad it is on my astrobin. 

I’m mostly disappointed and frustrated with my galaxy shots. The 8” SCT should be capable of some really great data, I just can’t figure out how to get it. 

I’m using a Celestron NexStar 8SE + 6.3 reducer and an ha-modified Canon EOS 1100D. The telescope is mounted on the SE alt/az mount without auto-guiding (I JUST set it up and can’t wait for a clear night!). My subs are almost always only 8 seconds (with around 300-500 subs total) and I stack in DSS with darks, flats, and biases. I image from my west-facing apartment balcony in a bortle 4.5, and am usually limited to about 4 hours max because I have a ceiling above me and walls on the other side.

Not the greatest set up, I know. But I want to make sure I’m getting the absolute best I can out of it. 

Thank you!!


Heather:

You'll have to make a choice between astronomy or being shackled in isolation in the corner in front of a computer. You are doing way too much at any stage of this game.

Recommendations:

1. Get an OSC camera with no amp glow or a modified DSLR. No need to use complicated gradient removal tools. 

2. Get a manual magnetic filter drawer and a multi- band filter.

3. Stack in DSS.

4. Post process in GIMP, Raw Therapy, or other basic free photo adjustment program.

5. Done.

Hello! I’m actually using a modified DSLR and stacking with DSS. I’m just frustrated with my images appearing too over processed.  I’m trying too hard to compensate for subpar data because my integration times are always too short.