Another attempt at processing my birdie.

Hello guys,

I've tried once more to process my M16 image following some of the advices you all gave me (I still have to contact Floyd who kindly offered to share with me the processing steps he used on my data, but haven't had much time with the new baby and all )

Here I started with DDP in CCDStack and that gave me a good starting point with the area of the pillars less bright and more contrasty. The rest I've done with applications of curves and then sharpening of the high S/N area and blurring of the low S/N ones.

As usual all your comments are more than welcome.

Ciao
Luca

Attached Image:

That does look better Luca! You are getting there.

Wonderful shot Luca! 8)
Warren's notes are very useful, and can only make your processing/shot even better...

Keep it up, my friend, you are doing great!

Luca,

This is a nice improvement over the prior version indeed! Take heart, I've been at this for five years now and still feel like a beginner!

Warren's advice is terrific, and I learned a thing or two from that speech myself . In fact, I think I'm going to see what the approach he's suggesting might do to some of my earlier shots.

While I'm a fan of DDP, that is not the be all and end all of my processing. It is my first step, and I do some additional tweaks with Levels and Curves afterwards. Actually, many times I try an image both ways: one with an initial DDP stretch, and another where I start from scratch and use several iterations of Levels and Curves. Whichever one looks better is the one I end up running with.

Eric