From: "milton_aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: March 26, 2011 6:01:20 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: a bit better..(?)

What does that have to do with what I talked about and how to do color saturation?

And for your information, I am on the "CAA-P" group and just read your last post.

So your whining and character assassination of me there is not going unnoticed.

So your officially banned from this group starting now.

Have a nice Life.

Milton J. Aupperle

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@...> wrote:

Thanks Milton,

For taking the trouble of providing a detailed explanation..

The option of using the re-set sliders, I did several times of course  

but felt I was persistently chasing my tail with the other settings.

I haven`t re-read your Manual (my fault) before trying this expecting  

the settings should be basically intuitive..(?)

I`ve re-done the mosaic again applying Focus magic to each 640 x 480  

pixel image then Photomerged again..

result here..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_gaffney/5562494266/

As to FM....below is a Command/ Shift/ 4 PNG snapshot of the interface  

from one of the images with the before & after focus thumbnails..

I`d thought the focus at the time (done without any fancy automatic  

focus gadget) was pretty good..

What more can I say..than to say I think it gives an excellent result..

Mark.

On 27/03/2011, at 10:14 AM, Milton Aupperle wrote:

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