There is more noise in my images than I would like, and I am wondering if my stretching technique is heavy handed.
What I do now is a series of Levels adjustments, moving the White point leftward until the histogram has enough room for me to make a black point adjustment. This usually takes three iterations, then I add a Curves adjustment.
I am using Affinity Photo, so I looked for Youtube videos on that software.
AstroStace uses iterations of small Gamma adjustments to move the histogram to the right.
James Ritson has a video of a live stream where he uses many gentle Curves iterations to get his stretch.
I also have the JR Macros. I tried one and it worked. But at this point I feel like I am just pushing a button to get a result without understanding the process or learning much from it. So for now, I would like to do this manually.
What techniques should I be using for my initial stretch to keep the noise down?
Or, is the noise just natural to the process and best dealt with later?
What I do now is a series of Levels adjustments, moving the White point leftward until the histogram has enough room for me to make a black point adjustment. This usually takes three iterations, then I add a Curves adjustment.
I am using Affinity Photo, so I looked for Youtube videos on that software.
AstroStace uses iterations of small Gamma adjustments to move the histogram to the right.
James Ritson has a video of a live stream where he uses many gentle Curves iterations to get his stretch.
I also have the JR Macros. I tried one and it worked. But at this point I feel like I am just pushing a button to get a result without understanding the process or learning much from it. So for now, I would like to do this manually.
What techniques should I be using for my initial stretch to keep the noise down?
Or, is the noise just natural to the process and best dealt with later?
