Post Processing: Basic

One of my close friend asked me: How the f*** do I process my images

from this....

to this

???

In this mini tutorial, I'll be demonstrating the few simple steps I use for One-Shot Colour (OSC) images produced by DSLRs and OSC Astronomical Cameras. This tutorial uses Phtotoshop CS 6. It will work for any older versions of Photoshop OR other image processing sofwares.

Step 1: Open the stacked image, this is your Linear stage (unstretched stage)

Step 2: Under Adjustments, click on Levels. This is where you start to bring out the details in your image

Repeat Step 2 until your histogram somewhat starts to spread out (I think there's a term for this)

Step 4: The image is now Non-Linear (Stretched) However, you'll notice that it has an extremely blueish hue to it. This is because I used a Light Pollution Filter while imaging this target.

To counter this, we can reduce the amount of blue via adjustments-levels. Drag the left slider of the blue channel towards the edge of the histogram.

to get the overall result below

You'll notice that this image above looks a little noisy with irregular colour blotches. We can reduce it with this function in Photoshop called 'Dust & Scratches"

Final step: Adjust and season the saturation/contrast and crop the image to your own taste. This is the final result from simple processing in Photoshop. If you have any requests or questions, let me know in the comments below!

Lagoon and Trifid Nebula