{"id":6015,"date":"2021-06-24T14:26:55","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T14:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/?p=6015"},"modified":"2021-06-24T18:00:58","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T18:00:58","slug":"blog-20210624","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/blog-20210624\/","title":{"rendered":"An Experiment in Processing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am constantly looking at different methods of processing images to develop better workflows and improve my images.<\/p>\n

This is so I can see what different things work, and continue discovering new ways of processing images to improve the images.
\nWhen do process my images, I always try as hard as I can to make them look as natural looking as possible.<\/p>\n

I always instil in people who attend my astrophotography workshops NOT to over-process their images.<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, being such a purist, it really drives me mad to see so many really over-processed images popping up online and on social media, with all sorts of processing artefacts visible. But I am starting to think that I might be missing a real trick here.<\/p>\n

In the early hours of the 20th of April, I was coming to the end of a short imaging session to capture Comet Leonard and some mono images.<\/p>\n

I was desperate to try and get some RGB data to attempt a colour image with the setup I am trying out, but was short of bright objects to try it on.
\nI could see that Hercules was fairly high by this time, so despite the gathering murk, I though that I’d grab a few shots of The fantastic globular cluster M13.<\/p>\n

I quickly rattled off a few shots using the three different coloured filters with the ZWO ASI183MM mono camera.<\/p>\n

Now onto the processing.
\nIt was never going to be a show-stopping image under those grotty conditions, but at least I got some RGB data to play with.<\/p>\n

So, how did it turn out? The results are below.
\nThe top image is a standard process using my tried and trusted technique.<\/p>\n

The bottom image takes the processing a bit further, enhancing the brighter stars and their colours.<\/p>\n

\"M13-20210419-Comparison-Process-Web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The bottom image, to my mind is well over-processed, but I felt that it does have something about it.<\/p>\n

As an experiment, I thought I would put it to the test and posted them both on social media, asking which image folks preferred.<\/p>\n

Apart from a few that liked the more natural looking top image, the vast majority of people who responded favoured the bottom image.<\/p>\n

So this really was a eye-opener for me.
\nDoes that mean I need to over-process my images to get more likes and shares, or should I stick to my principles?<\/p>\n

What do you think folks?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am constantly looking at different methods of processing images to develop better workflows and improve my images. This is so I can see what different things work, and continue discovering new ways of processing images to improve the images. When do process my images, I always try as hard as I can to make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"An Experiment in Processing - Star-Gazing","description":"I am constantly looking at different methods of processing images to develop better workflows and improve my images. This is so I can see what different things"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6015"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6033,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6015\/revisions\/6033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}