Oscar H. avatar
I want to know your thoughts on my processing skills in photoshop. I am a beginner. This data was NOT acquired by me, only processed by me. A person on youtube was giving out free seagull nebula monochrome data for practice only (I cannot find the video anymore, I don't remember the title).

I made an RGB image by adding monochrome images into color channels and then tweaking it with curves.
I used StarXterminator and NoiseXterminator too.

RGB





Monochrome images:
Ha - red


SII - green


OIII - blue
Helpful Engaging
Joe Linington avatar
Not bad at all, not that I'm a great expert with SHO data. If I had one criticism, It appears a bit overstretch or heavy handed where the Ha data is it's brightest (yellow areas) causing some postulation instead of a nice smooth transition. The same appears in your monochrome image of the Ha where I can see some blow out in the brightest areas.
Concise
gmadkat avatar
I think it looks good, great start on processing! Some suggestions and questions… 
Why did you choose HSO vs the Hubble SHO? It is a question of personal preference but was curious on your reason for it
Did you stretch with curves or HT or any other tools? I think you can get more details out still from this data with nuanced stretches in steps.
The background appears a little to dark, what does the historgram look like?
Helpful Engaging Supportive
Arny avatar
looks very nice, but the colors appear somewhat false and too intense …
John avatar
a little trick i do  to get color  stars.  S2 in red,S2 and o3 in green..both 50 % and O3 in blue.  Ha as luminance, the rest in pixinsight with colormask script.
greetings John
Oscar H. avatar
I forgot to say that the mono images were stretched 4 or 5 times using first the round curve then the S-curve.


@Joe Linington Yeah, I think I overstretched the Ha.

@Arny It is saturated, but it was an experiment. Just think of it as art.

@John Thank you for the info. I will transition to pixinsight later on.

@gmadkat 1st question: because it just looked cool and different (It was only an experiment anyway). 2nd question: I only stretched with curves in photoshop. I mostly knew there was more detail hiding, but I just didn't think of stretching it more. 3rd question: Here is the histogram.

Thank you for the compliments.
Rick avatar
I'd say you're on the right track. Some people like the vivid colours, others, not so much. Star spikes for example are another point of contention. I personally think star spikes give an image character, although they are an artefact. I was also never really a fan of vivid narrowed colours, but the more images I produce, the more I like to try and be different. As well as art, I like to think of these images as chemical maps. The same way a infrared can be represented using colours going from dark blue (coldest), to red, then white (hottest). Keep up the good work, hopefully you'll be able to acquire your own data at some point.
Supportive
Oscar H. avatar
@Rick Yes, thank you. I agree with your thinking. I just got an 8" newtonian. An ASIair plus and autoguider is next before I start imaging.
Oscar H. avatar
I tried to improve the image. I unsaturated some colors, I used the Hubble pallet this time (SII-red Ha-green OIII-blue), I tried to reveal some more detail with more curves, I also tried to keep the brightest areas a little bit dimmer, and I preserved star colors. I'm only wondering if that blue glow on the bottom right corner is actual OIII or a processing mistake.
Helpful Engaging
Joe Linington avatar
That's a fantastic edit. Although my preference is for HSO. But that's artists prerogative.
Davide Mascoli avatar
Hello,
in my modest astrophotography journey, all post-processing phase holds the 'highest' difficulty in term of degrees of freedom, because, in principle, we do not know which is the result we should approach. As an example, the nebulae colors are something extremely hard to consider as 'the exact result'.
Despite there are several techniques to emphasize nebulae chemical elements like HOO, SHO (as you also considered in your approach) which overcome the overall natural colors question, even with those particular post-processing choices different results can also be obtained by different astrophotographers, the latters being influenced (probably) by personal tastes but also by the environment 'surrounding' the data collected (our own setup, sky condition, acquisition technique…).
When I looked at your image I liked your overall result,  because you revealed a faint nebula like the Seagull in all its splendor. I also agree too, to do not be (as a general rule and as far as it is feasible) too much 'aggressive' in stretching signals especially if already strong (like your Ha),  so helping in maintaining your result as 'natural' as possibile so representing the nebulae delicacy.
All the best,
clear skies, Davide.
Helpful Insightful Respectful Engaging Supportive
Oscar H. avatar
@Joe Linington Thanks
@Davide Mascoli Thank you for your advice.
Related discussions
Adding Ha to lrgb -Startools
I recorded a session of adding Ha data to a Lrgb image in Startools 1.7 , no audio commentary but if you have used Startools before then you’ll know the work flow , details in the title info on video , may be helpful to someone. https://youtu.be/mLll...
Discusses processing skills; author demonstrates Startools workflow expertise.
Mar 19, 2021
Very easy Pixinsight Workflow Tutorial (For Beginner and Intermediate)
Dear fellow Astrophotographers, Yesterday I had my 10th Birthday as an Astrophotographer In our local group I teached most of our members because I was the first which switched to Pixinsight. So I narrowed it down to a really easy workflow where my f...
Pixinsight tutorial may help advance beginner processing skills beyond current Photoshop approach.
Aug 31, 2024
Photoshop workflow help!
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 res...
Directly relevant; discusses Photoshop workflow for astrophotography processing like author's current method.
Jul 19, 2024