From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: March 26, 2011 5:14:28 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] a bit better..(?)

On 26-Mar-11, at 2:40 PM, Mark Gaffney wrote:

Milton,

Firstly, what would be the original size? Is it possible to go to that, post the operation, in the size selection department of Flickr..(magnifying glass icon at top of selected image then select all sizes..?)

Go here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_gaffney/5540825188/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Click on "Original size".

I haven`t seen any examples of people trying this color balancing operation apart from you! Maybe I don`t get out enough!

Your images seem to be the best examples of Moon processing I`m aware of..

Go to LPOD then:

http://lpod.wikispaces.com/March+26%2C+2011

There are tonnes of people doing this in the past.

If you had read my original message, you'd have done it already. I'll break it down in very small simple steps for you to follow.

1) Import Color image into Astro IIDC (Processing menu > Process Image).

2) Click on the "Re-Set" buttons for Sharpness, RGB Levels and RGB Gains so they are all now at Defaults values.

3) Set Curves to 1.00.

4) Set  LumaNoise reduction to Off.

5) Using  the three RGB (Red Green Blue) gains, Balance the Moon image so it's Gray. Gray means no color cast at all it should be perfectly gray. This is your starting point.

6) Set the "RGB Saturation to about 1.0. You may have to go higher before you get a significant colors showing up.

7) Adjust the R and B Gain controls in very small increment (i.e. if it's 1.020 currently try 1.030 or 1.010) using the single step controls the right side of the text fields, which will increase or decrease the intensity of that color.

8) Using common sense adjust the image until they look pleasing. The mares will tend to be a darker blue, the heavily crated highlands more greenish / bluish, fresh impacts are bluish / greenish and the north pole area more reddish tones.

You just need to do things in small steps until it looks something like this:

http://www.outcastsoft.com/AstroImages/Luna_Enchanced_20050216_MJA.jpg

Note that the image on the left is what I started out with, which has been color balanced to gray. And that's pretty much the same colors I shot it at originally too. If your original images as shot by the camera were screwed up and really off color balance wise (strong red cast or blue / green cast etc.) , you may not achieve what I have done, as the strong initial color hue wipes out other subtle colors.

Milton Aupperle