Articles, Actions and Tutorials

Selective Color Actions

I have created a free set of Photoshop actions which are available under the selective color actions page. They will help bring out the rich blue and gold colors present in star forming galaxies. Please feel free to download and enjoy this action!

Introduction to Levels

In Photoshop, the Levels tool, and understanding the histogram is one of the most rudimentary skills an imager must posses. This Tutorial aims to aid in the beginning imagers quest to master the basics of the levels tool and Histogram for image processing.

Introduction to Curves

Understanding how to use the Photoshop tool “Curves” is just as important as understanding levels, because it is simply another method of histogram manipulation. However, Curves gives you more control of the histogram over levels. This Tutorial will teach you how to use “Curves”

High Pass Filtering

Layer Masking & HDR Processing

Saturation and Color Contrast

Star Reduction

Object Masking for Contrast Enhancement

Deconvolution

Bi Color Narrowband Processing

LRGB Image Processing

Tri Color Narrowband Processing

Example: Dusty Nebulae

Example: Galaxies

This Processing Example shows the steps that were taken to process this image of the iris nebula with the goal of revealing its faint dust. It can be used as a general beginners guide to how to process dim nebulae. The tools used in this tutorial are at a very Basic level.

Deconvolution is a powerful way of sharpening Astronomical images. It is intimidating to some because deconvolution may leave artifacts and amplify noise; However, i am going to show you how to Deconvolve Astronomical images, and process the result for a clean final image.

High Pass filtering is a method used to increase the contrast and sharpness of an image. It is a fairly easy technique to use, and can have a drastic effect on the final image. This tutorial will show you a few ways to sharpen your images using High Pass filters.

Large Bloated Stars are visually distracting from the main subject of a photo. In this Tutorial i will show you an extremely simple method to reduce the size of the stars.

Luminance, Red, Green, and Blue Filtered imaging is a very popular method in Astrophotography. This tutorial will show you how to assemble, and process LRGB images

Bi Color Narrowband imaging is a method which utilizes Hydrogen alpha, and Oxygen III filters. When the data from the two filters are combined into color, it can approximate a true color RGB image.  This tutorial teaches this simple yet powerful technique.

Narrowband imaging is a very effective way to deal with excessive light pollution. Assembling data from SII, Ha, and OIII filters into the “Hubble Palette” color scheme is a popular way to present Narrowband Data. Here i will show you how to Process Tri-Color Narrowband images.

This Tutorial focuses on increasing the contrast of an image by selectively darkening the shadows while leaving the mid-tones and highlights alone. It works well on nebulae, both faint and bright.

**** Some Unavailable Tutorials will be Accessible Soon ****

Layer Masking is one of the most important features of Photoshop CS. Layer Masks can be used to selectively increase, sharpness, color, contrast, darkness and much more. This Tutorial will Teach you how to properly use layer masks, and how to create a high dynamic Range image.

There are Many ways to boost the colors in an Astro-Image, and i am going to teach you about a few different methods in this tutorial. Also i will talk about the importance of careful processing of color Data for vibrant contrasty colors.

This Processing Example shows the steps that were taken to process this image of the Ngc 7331 with the goal of achieving good colors and galactic detail. It can be used as a general beginners guide to how to process Galaxies.

HaRGB for Galaxies

This short video quick tip demonstrates how to blend in hydrogen alpha data into galaxy images. This simple technique is a great way to enhance the star forming regions in many galaxies.