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Image Processing Tutorials, Tips & Advice ?


Al.Grant

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Hi,


 


I'm starting to take my first steps into imaging and image processing.


 


 


Does anybody know of any good tutorials or workflow examples that will help me get started.  Looking mostly for DSO tutorials, but also have some planetary stuff that I need to get around to processing.


 


I've done a web search and there seem to be lots out there, so looking to try filter the good from the bad and the basic from the advanced.


 


I currently have access to the following software (but am no expert with any of them!):


>  FITS liberator


>  Registax


>  Deep Sky Stacker


>  Photoshop CS3 - also purchased Noel Carboni's PS actions as it seem to have lots of recommendations. 


 


Images will mostly be FITS images from iTelescope and RAW files from my dslr.  I am looking at purchasing a CCD in the near future, so any practice now will come in useful later. 


 


Particularly interested in any PS tutorials that include the image files for the tutorial .... at least that way I can have confidence that the data is actually there to be extracted!  (working on the 'garbage in = garbage out' principle).


 


Thanks


 


 


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there`s alot out there and i`m learning from these guys as well, it gives you a headache sometimes !


i wont say how i do it as i got alittle slated on another forum by surgesting something that seemed to work for me, but as said i haven`t been doing this long at all, only just got my first lrgb images a few weeks back, so i`ll sit back and watch this thread with interest as the "pros" give there advice.


one thing i will say is the using a canon dlsr one shot camera is alot eaiser L.O.L.


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I know I keep saying this guys name recently but I am in no way affiliated with him! Check out Doug German Astrophotography tutorials on YouTube. Very helpful indeed and easy to understand :)

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Thanks both.


I did find lots of links to various tutorials, enough to give information overload and trying to find the best ones to follow was making my head hurt (still is!)

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Guest Kheldar

Ultimately you will develop your own style taking bits from various guides / people.

Just dive in, run through a couple, see what comes out of it and if you're happy with it :)

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A great source for tutorials is YouTube, there are a lot of them on there and I find them easier to follow than a load of instructions. As Stephen says though, you'll find your own groove. I watched a lot of tutorials and took a few aspects from each and threw in a few of my own afterwards through tinkering about. There is no exact science to it, there are many ways to crack the same nut.


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Second Felix's; Doug German Astrophotography tutorials on YouTube! Very easy to follow.


At the end of the day Alan, finish your images so that YOU are happy with them and not everybody else's idea of what 


they should look like.


 


Cheers


Ron


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Guest Tweedledum

As with Kheldar, have a go, and see what suits your style best. So long as you keep copies of the original data you can note down incremental improvements and compare the results. Small changes can make huge difference to the final image and make judicious use of the sharpening tools :)


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Thanks for the links and advice   :thumbsup: 


 


I think I've got myself a bit more focused and will start by concentrating on just one of two of the basic tutorials rather than getting distracted (and confused) by looking at the mass of info out there.


 


I have found one photoshop processing tutorial that covers many of the basics and has the unprocessed L,R,G,B images available to download.  


So I know the images being processed actually have data in there that can be brought out following the tutorial. 

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Thanks for the links and advice :thumbsup:

I think I've got myself a bit more focused and will start by concentrating on just one of two of the basic tutorials rather than getting distracted (and confused) by looking at the mass of info out there.

I have found one photoshop processing tutorial that covers many of the basics and has the unprocessed L,R,G,B images available to download.

So I know the images being processed actually have data in there that can be brought out following the tutorial.

Which tutorial provides the data to work with Al? Got a link?

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Which tutorial provides the data to work with Al? Got a link?

 

I'm starting with this Photoshop L,R,G,B primer  http://www.astropixels.co.uk/LRGB_primer.htm 

As a 'primer' it is only quite basic and I'm sure there will be better and more in depth ones out there, but they don't seem to have the tutorial image files available and I think this is a big help when starting out as at least with the basics and it helps to know that there is actually some data in the images, so if I can't get the end results then I know it's my processing and not the image files.  (wish there were more like it)

 

I've use Photoshop before through work, which is where my PS CS3 copy came from  (self employed - so didn't 'borrow' it from work :D ), but am well out of practice and never used it for astro image processing.   Hopefully it shouldn't take too long to get me back into it, 

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