StarTools

Ivo,

I've been very happy with the results I've been getting lately, however if there was one thing that I wish I could do would be to get some colour back into my stars. At the moment after processing most of my stars are white rather than nice yellows and blues. I don't know if it's a factor of the length of my exposures or how I'm processing but I was wondering if you had any advice regarding this issue? At the moment i'm playing with adding in some short exposure images which I process separately and then layer merge into the main picture.

Cheers,
Mario

Hi Mario,

Getting color back into your stars is really quite easy to do. It is done like this;

• Create a star mask
• Launch the 'Magic' module
• Select 'Shrink Core' mode. This mode will shrink any overexposed parts of your stars and draw any colored part into the core. Set iterations to whatever you like (more iterations draws color in further). You might also want to increase the 'grow mask' parameter 1 or 2 pixels.
• 'Keep' the result and launch the Color module.
• Bump up the Saturation parameter to accentuate star color.
• Pat yourself on the back!

This procedure is something I'm looking at automating a bit more.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,