Feedback on First Attempts

[northern_plights]

Hi there Ivo (and all!)

While I'm waiting for the skies to clear here, I've been practicing processing in StarTools with other users' data (these in particular generously donated to the /r/astrophotography community data pool by /u/bersonic).

Just hoping for some feedback from the community on how these images turned out. I'm pretty happy with them for the most part, especially for a first attempt. I have a few issues with each, but I'll keep those to myself for now so as to not bias anybody

TIFs are available for the master stacks, however I've uploaded everything to imgur as JPEGs to save bandwidth.

They all follow a pretty standard workflow: AutoDev, Crop and/or Bin, Wipe (masked), AutoDev, HDR, Wavelet, Decon, Colour, Life, Contrast, Turn off Tracking

Let me know what you all think!
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M42 Stack: http://i.imgur.com/AYLWgZS.jpg
M42 Processed: http://i.imgur.com/QwQNh0k.jpg

M45 Stack: http://i.imgur.com/cg5swJz.jpg
M45 Processed: http://i.imgur.com/ZUIcnBb.jpg

M31 Stack: http://i.imgur.com/d8L3PPu.jpg
M31 Processed: http://i.imgur.com/8jbAZY4.jpg

[admin]

These are actually insanely good for someone who just started. In fact, any comments I would make would fall in the realm of personal taste.
I'm so happy to see good, informative, coloring in all three images (the data seems like it could probably handle a bit more saturation in the darker areas, but that's purely a taste thing). Stars cover the whole temperature range, M31 is a textbook example of a galaxy with a yellowish core (due to older stars) and bluer outer rim (due to young, bright, blue stars outshining yellow and red stars).

How did you end up using the Life module?

[northern_plights]

Wow, thanks Ivo. That's incredible to hear for a first-timer. Really means a lot!
And again, a shout out to Bersonic - great data means smooth sailing for processing

I've only ever used the "less is more" setting in the life module, I found it would dim the slightly-too-bright parts of the target while bringing it out of the background a bit. Small step but I noticed an improvement.

Do you find any of the above a little to green? I was having trouble getting the last few pesky green stars out, but again I was going through these quickly.

If I may, I'd suggest having the "smaller area render" preview thing in the colour module. I find the colour module is slow on my system (quad core, 6gb ram) so I'm less willing to spend a lot time with the bias sliders when the whole image needs to render.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[admin]

Wow, thanks Ivo. That's incredible to hear for a first-timer. Really means a lot!
And again, a shout out to Bersonic - great data means smooth sailing for processing

I've had fun myself with /u/Bersonic's data - it's great data to learn with; deep, but not flawless. It's data us 'mere mortals' would produce.

Do you find any of the above a little to green? I was having trouble getting the last few pesky green stars out, but again I was going through these quickly.

Looks good to me, but if you're worried about having green left in places, even though you like the color balance that you came up with, then you can use the 'Cap Green' parameter to nuke the last of the green.

If I may, I'd suggest having the "smaller area render" preview thing in the colour module. I find the colour module is slow on my system (quad core, 6gb ram) so I'm less willing to spend a lot time with the bias sliders when the whole image needs to render.

Yep, that makes sense. The Color module used to be fairly simple, but it's now become quite powerful, doing a lot of stuff in the background (which means slightly longer waiting times).

Thanks!