Author Topic: NGC281 The Pacman Nebula  (Read 6252 times)

Offline LD

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NGC281 The Pacman Nebula
« on: 2007 October 02 12:11:47 »
Finally have a new image, so I thought I'd share it. I've only recently been fully doing color in Pix, which is quite a pleasure. Still have to get my weights right, so you'll see two versions with a different red in each. Thank for looking.
Larry

http://www1.freewebs.com/drivewayastronomy/latestimages.htm

Offline Maxi

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NGC281 The Pacman Nebula
« Reply #1 on: 2007 October 02 14:15:54 »
A very good image.

Greetings

Offline Juan Conejero

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NGC281 The Pacman Nebula
« Reply #2 on: 2007 October 03 05:08:02 »
Hi Larry,

Nice shot. Perhaps I'd prefer something between both versions, but definitely closer to the second one.

Try to use a mask to protect the brightest areas of the image when applying a color saturation boost. A simple luminance mask (by extracting the L channel of CIE Lab) usually does the job. If you don't protect bright regions, excessive color saturation may cause a loss of contrast. For example, the details in the central parts of M17 look better in the first version.
Juan Conejero
PixInsight Development Team
http://pixinsight.com/

Offline LD

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NGC281 The Pacman Nebula
« Reply #3 on: 2007 October 03 13:00:34 »
(Sorry if this posts twice--I thought I sent it earlier but didn't see it appear. Operator error I'm sure.)

Maxi y Juan,

Gracias.

(That will be the end of my Spanish :wink: )

You comments and suggestions are appreciated. I will definitely go back and try to bring out the color with a mask in place and also try it without the luminance. So much to learn! Actually, it is that very ability to do virtually limitless creative strategies that makes Pix both so powerful and so much fun to play with, in my very humble opinion. I look forward to the commercial release.

Maxi, I thoroughly enjoyed your website and images.

Regards,
Larry

Offline Maxi

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NGC281 The Pacman Nebula
« Reply #4 on: 2007 October 03 13:08:42 »
It continues practicing Larry.

In the main page of the program there are very good tutorials, that they helped you much.

Greetings, Maxi

Offline LD

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One more try!
« Reply #5 on: 2007 October 06 04:56:32 »
I took one more stab at my recent NGC281. I aimed for a slightly less garish color (somewhere between my two previous versions) plus getting a smoother and neutral backgound. Also hoped to bring out star color a bit more. I don't know if it's an improvement or just time to stop! But I am learning quite a bit about Pix.

Thanks for all the help,
Larry


http://www1.freewebs.com/drivewayastronomy/latestimages.htm

PS: Feel free to ignore the lunar shot--no Pix involved.