Wizard Nebula

[paulgrover68]

Had some clear sky on a work night and grabbed this. Had some issues with processing; the ASI had an update that killed my dark library.

Quite pleased with it, but some star halos happened and I just can't seem to draw out the more subtle colours. I need to work out the next refinement to my processing regime. ASI294MC-PRO, L-eNHance, Altair EDT 130. 30 x 5 min subs and Unity.

 

 

[Padraic M]

Love the depth in the nebula. 👍

[MarkAR]

Looks good, just a shame about the halos. They are a nightmare on some targets.

[TerryMcK]

Nice image. You can get rid of the halos by judicious use of the clone stamp tool after removing the stars. Once you have cleaned up the excessive haloing put the stars back into place. You need to experiment though as it can look a little overprocessed.

[paulgrover68]

I'm going to wind this back to an earlier stage of processing to practice on those halos.  My first go at cloning failed - probably due to haste.  I'm almost caught up on some other jobs, so have some time to chuck at it.

[paul]

I like that image very much; your processing of the darker clouds really give it shape and wizarding energy🙂

 

Not sure if its relevant but I found that using the PI StarMask with a large-scale = 1 and smoothness  of 32 seemed to fix my star rings, the default large-scale = 2gave me real problems.

[peter shah]

thats a lovey rendition Paul

[AstronomyUkraine]

 

5 hours ago, paulgrover68 said:

I'm going to wind this back to an earlier stage of processing to practice on those halos.  My first go at cloning failed - probably due to haste.  I'm almost caught up on some other jobs, so have some time to chuck at it.

I attempted to remove the halos in photoshop using the spot healing brush set to content aware, after removing the stars in Starnet. Most of them were removed except one, even that was toned down a bit.

 

 

 

[Marmot]

I like it! It has a real 3D feel to it. Well done.

[paulgrover68]

Thanks all.

 

That looks better Brian.  I was a bit ham fisted with my first go with my first content aware fill - somehow did it on the wrong layer and ended up with black halos.  So ditched the layer with on and tried some other methods.  I'm getting a much better handle on what starnet can and can't do... that's lead me to halo control.

That's what I like about this hobby, it's kind of an exercise in problem identification and solving.

[AstronomyUkraine]

On 8/17/2021 at 12:43 PM, paulgrover68 said:

Thanks all.

 

That looks better Brian.  I was a bit ham fisted with my first go with my first content aware fill - somehow did it on the wrong layer and ended up with black halos.  So ditched the layer with on and tried some other methods.  I'm getting a much better handle on what starnet can and can't do... that's lead me to halo control.

That's what I like about this hobby, it's kind of an exercise in problem identification and solving.

Halos are a pain in the neck, especially with OIII filters. There are a few tools in Photoshop that can remove the residue left when removing stars with Starnet, I just happened to choose the first I come to. The clone stamp is probably the better tool, as you can adjust the opacity, whereas with the spot healing brush you have no adjustment with opacity. It's just a case of trial and error to see which works best for you.

[P Holdsworth]

Very nice Paul. The wizard itself looks beautifully sharp.

 

Paul