Photoshop Action Sets Partial Review.

[Radar]

I have been experimenting with Noel Carboni's photoshop action set.

When I bought these a few weeks back I experimented with them but didn't really understand their full potential.

Last night I had another look at them and pulled out some images that are difficult to process.

Once I learnt a trick or two my processing skills became light years ahead of where they were. These tools are very powerful when applied correctly.

I have only learnt one or two techniques of the many techniques that are available and I am already very happy to say the least. I can't wait to start processing more photos.

One of the images I processed was the Witch Head nebula. This object is incredibly faint. So I find it hard to process the blue nebula without affecting the other objects (stars).

Using one of Noel tools, allowed me to completely remove all the stars from the image, process the blue nebula, and then reinsert the stars.

These cool action sets are not designed as an alternative for using photoshop, you'll still need good knowledge of photoshop, but take the Witch Head's word for it, they are worth the purchase in my opinion. First image of the WitchHead was the most I could pull from it before using Noel's action set tools, the second shot is a quick 5 minute learning / experimentation process. The extra blue is easy to see, the stars remain the same colour.

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These images only demonstrate one tool, they are still noisy and still need a lot of work.

I recommend Noel's Action Sets for anyone who wants an added advantage when it comes to image processing. :thumbsupmate:

[Tenacious Del]

How does an action set actually work?

[Noel Carboni]

Hi folks,

Photoshop actions are pre-recorded sequences of operations that can be played back via a few mouse clicks. One can load prerecorded actions into Photoshop from a file.

It's possible to package up a number of primitive operations in a complex sequence to effect higher level operations. In the case of my actions, these higher level operations are organized as tools one might want to use for astroimage processing. For example, the "Select Brighter Stars" action uses various transforms to separate the stars from the background nebulae/galaxies and ultimately give you a selection mask that encompasses just the stars. Once you've got the ability to select stars at will, you can begin to envision methods to process the DSO in the image separately - or perhaps more aggressively - than the stars, to achieve a particular result.

Here's an illustration... Given the ability to select just the stars:

1. We may have an image with dim DSO data and bright stars.

http://www.ourdarkskies.com/gallery2/d/946-1/1.jpg

2. We can duplicate the image as a second layer, select just the stars, then run a Median filter to visually eliminate them.

http://www.ourdarkskies.com/gallery2/d/948-1/2.jpg

3. We set the mixing mode of the top layer to "Screen", which essentially adds the brightness levels together.

http://www.ourdarkskies.com/gallery2/d/950-1/3.jpg

So, in a few short operations we've lightened the DSO data without causing the stars to be overly expanded.

Pretty much anything you can imagine doing to an image with discrete steps in Photoshop can be done in an action. Well crafted actions can easily rival plugins in functionality and utility.

You can find a list of the actions in my set here: http://www.ProDigitalSoftware.com/Astronomy_Tools.html

-Noel

[h0ughy]

that looks great, I might have to get a copy of those tools. oh and learn how to use photoshop....

[Radar]

This is one of those threads that slipped through the net. I hadn't seen this Noel. Awesome processing as usual. Thanks for the outline mate. Your tools have become standard for me on all my processing. :thumbsupmate: