NGC 2903

Paul, 
It looks to me that you may have overdone the denoising a bit, that will blur the small details. Even at 10 hours of integration your image should still have a little bit of noise.
After reducing the denoising I would use UnsharpMask and LocalHistogramEqualization to bring out the details a little more, but don't overdo it.
I like the blue star forming areas and the red nebulosity. You have plenty of saturation in the galaxy, but maybe a bit too much in some of the stars.
Just my opinion and I'm certainly no expert,
Monty

Uwe Deutermann:
Hi Paul!

I am unfortunately not the best galaxy processing guy, hence take any criticism with this in mind please. Since I tried the same target as well I could compare them. Definitely your image looks better, much more details of the arms to see (I had just 4 hours in total, maybe that explains, or you processed it better, which might be very well possible). 



Funny enough, when I saw your image I thought: man, the background is a tick too dark, not realizing that mine was even darker 😊. I do like the brighter part of this galaxy in my image, yours came out a bit fuzzy, not sure if there were not ideal conditions since the rest is clearly better visible. Maybe some work in Topaz sharpening (very carefully) might help. Your color management is definitely nicer!

Also very interesting: the color of your stars. Clearly better, but they are very much pinpoint (I had that in one of my last images and I really do not know why that happened). I actually tried to convolute them, but this did not help that much. And maybe this is how it is, they are definitely nicely round and show their color very well.

What else could you do better? I would be already very pleased with the image, maybe some galaxy processing specialist can suggest something. All in all, very nice image!

Uwe

Hi Uwe -

Thanks much for your feedback.  I find that I'm always struggling between too much sharpening and not enough sharpening.  I started AP two years ago using  PS and then APP for a few months.  Last June, I decided to dive into PI all the way with tutoring by Ron Brecher and more recently the Godfather of PI, Warren Keller, which has been invaluable.  One thing I have noticed is the people have different perspectives on processing (not surprisingly). Warren's feedback on my Astrobin images was good color but a little over sharpened.  After looking them over again, I tend to agree so I'm working at subtle sharpening rather than in-your-face sharpening.  It's a very fine line between the two, I think.  I went in baby steps on NGC 2903.  I've tried using a variety of sharpening tools including MMT, MLT, Unsharpen and von Hartmut Bornemann's AdvSharpening script using a variety of masks but always seemed to over do it so I ended up with this final image. 

Background - I found this really interesting between Ron and Warren.  Ron teaches 10% as ideal and Warren goes more with visually how it looks in relation to the image.  I kind of fit somewhere in between although this image is generally darker than I would like.  Color - I've only been using Curves Transformation but based on some of Warren's guidance, I used the ColorSaturation tool on this galaxy along with CT for colors, which seemed to help.  Bornemann's GAME script is a absolute game changer (pun intended).  It allows very precise targeting that other PI tools don't. 

Anyway, thanks again for your comments and thoughts.  I appreciate it!

Paul

gmadkat:
Paul,

I think this is a very beautiful image and beautifully processed, and I was admiring your other galaxies too! I generally finish my galaxies in Photoshop to refine details and to lift the outer nebulosity, so that is the only suggestion I have if you think more detail is possible with your data? I use Camera Raw filter and the Shape and Nik utilities to do this. 

Gowri

Gowri -

Thanks for your thoughts.  I'm glad you like it.  I went back and forth on this image for hours trying to walk the line between colors, noise, saturation and detail before finally calling it good.  I tend to be a little anal about things but boy, PI has sure humbled me in that respect!  So little time, so much to learn.

Your suggestion about putting the finishing touches with PS is a good one that others have suggested too.  I'll have to work on that more in my future images.   I use Camera Raw Filter a lot but not very familiar with the Nik and Shape utilities.  Any chance you could provide more information or point me in the direction on those tools?

Paul