Help please combining aligned RGB with Lum - harry's tutorial.

[stevek]

Hi All,
I create my RGB picture just fine.  I now want to align with luminance - as per Harry's video.  So I use the Dynamic alignment tool as per instructions, select Lum as the source (1) and the RGB as the destination (2).  The tool then spits out a RGB aligned with the Lum.  Cool.  I now have an aligned RGB colour image.  Cool.

I now come to do LRGB combination.  I select the Lum image only and untick the RGB tick boxes (which I have to exit out of pixinsight and come back in again to get them to just show "auto" ).  So when I press apply global why, why, why do I keep getting a Greyscale only image?  It appears not to be combining the LRGB at all! I have this problem on both my MAc and on Windows.  So I am doing something wrong or there is a bug.

I am totally lost as to why it is not working.  I am the latest version of PI.

Any thoughts or ideas please?

Thanks, Steve

[pfile]

with the LRGBCombination set up with RGB unchecked and just L checked and chosen, drag the triangle of the LRGBCombination process to the RGB image and it should work. make sure you don't have a mask applied and activated on the RGB image.

you don't need the boxes to show "<auto>" - that is not terribly that useful anyway - i think if you have exactly 4 images with the identifier suffixes _R, _G, _B and _L, then the tool can just find your images. but in practice i end up having a zillion images open anyway with similar names.

all that matters is what boxes are checked and what images are in the filename slots.

apply global is sort of the wrong thing here - what that is meant for is to take 4 images and create a new LRGB image from them. that's why you get an L image; the tool is trying to make an LRGB with just an L

besides dragging the triangle you could also activate the RGB view and then hit the square button on the LRGBCombination process.

rob

[stevek]

Thanks for that alternate method.  However, I still get an image where there is only black and white whereas my pure RGB is coloured  Furthermore the produced image does have some Red green and blue around the edges so that would imply that colour combination has taken place!  Very confused indeed......  Done a screen capture to show what I am doing....  YOu can see the colour around the "completed" LRGB combination image bottom left.  But it is still B+W...... 
Thanks, Steve

[pfile]

are the RGB and L in linear form?

if so the color is probably there, but the image needs to be stretched and the saturation increased.

if the RGB and L are already stretched, then you may need to pump the saturation in the RGB before the combine. you can also decrease the saturation transfer function slider which will emphasize the color in the LRGB merge, or do both.

rob

[stevek]

Yes the files are still in linear form, I have not stretched them yet.  I will have a play around with that and see where I get.  However, when I really zoom in on the supposedly combined LRGB image all I see is Black and White pixels making me think the combination has not been done at all....  Many thanks for your suggestions.
If you want to have a look and see if I am doing things right here are the files.  Even these need work but I am trying to get the workflow sorted in my head  8)

Many thanks for your guidance.
Steve

Luminance
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20949989/Luminance%20after%20DBE.fit
RGB
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20949989/RGB%20after%20DBE%20after%20colour%20calibration.fit

[sreilly]

Usually I get the RGB image completely done as a standalone RGB would be finished. This means that I've combine my master R,G, and B frames creating the RGB image. Then I do a dynamic crop so the image has clean edges, ie.. not overlapping. Then I'd do my linear processes such as DBE, color balance, and background neutralization if needed. I save each resulting image after each step naming appropriately. Then I do my non-linear processes such as Histogram stretch,HDRW,  color saturation, curves and so on. Saving each as I go. When I'm happy with the RGB image and only then would I combine with a completely processed luminance image. Just to be sure, the luminance is a finished image in itself ready for posting should I want. At that point I would combine the RGB and Luminance images after they have been aligned using Dynamic Align. As mentioned, using the LRGB Combined method you would drag the triangle over to the registered RGB image resulting in a now LRGB combination image. You can adjust curves and saturation further at this point if needed.

HTH,