From: "jimchung2338" <jim_chung@sunshine.net>
Date: March 31, 2007 8:21:14 PM MDT
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: My final Saturn (finally)
Alan,
Thanks for the tweaks and processing insights! It looks much better!
Jim
--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, "Alan Friedman" <alan@...> wrote:
Hi Jim -
First of all, I hope this is not your final saturn - you are just getting your ducks in a
row!
Great shot and congratulations on catching some fine seeing. It was nice here too
Thursday night - but the conditions looked even better on the north side of Lake
Ontario. I spent the evening enjoying the view through the eyepiece.
I took the liberty of tweaking the color of your picture a little:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Planetary RASCSaturn_var1.jpg
to subdue the violet cast in the rings and on the edge of the disk. I worked in
Photoshop CS2, using the >select>>color range command and set the color picker
on a spot in the rings with the strong violet hue, experimenting with the fuzziness
setting to tune the selection and then feathering the selection by a couple of
pixels. The color adjustment was then done using the sliders in
Image>>Adjustments>>>Color Balance to make the tones more neutral. This
command, along with Hue/Saturation, are the color adjustment tools I use most
often.
I also did a very slight adjustment in Levels to brighten the image a little.
There should be some nice little pockets of steady spring air after sunset so don't
put Saturn imaging out of your mind just yet. Jupiter, on the other hand, is going
to be one tough customer. I got up at 4:30 for a looksee Friday morning - Jupiter
looked like a pearl onion lying in a pot of boiling water (with some spaghetti
strands thrown in to represent the power lines that span the lower reaches of my
backyard!)
best -
Alan