The Giant Squid - Full HOO Processing Tutorial In PixInsight (Mono)
Squid Nebula (Ou4) is one of those targets that looks unreal the first time you see it — and it’s also one of the easiest ways to get humbled by faint signal and gradients. In this...
You managed to hold it together admirably Luca, though a couple of times I thought you were going to lose it lol😅 😏 😈
haha PixInsight tests my patience
Complimenti per tutti i tuoi video! Molto preparata! … Bella e Brava 🌷
That's a very lovely image.
I like how you approach stretching your image scientifically, by looking at the numbers to check you don't blow out the highlights or crush the blend etc. I've seen to many videos where people are just stretching a bit, it looks OK, so stretch some more, and so on. As someone just starting out on PI, that worried me. Seeing how we can stretch and check what we're doing to the highlights or blacks by the numbers makes me feel a bit more confident that I might have an idea when I'm doing it enough or if I've gone to far. Many thanks for the effort of another great video
No background extraction?
no, I shoot from dark skies
My SENSEI, one is left speechless by how you handle PixInsight, how complex it is, all my admiration.
looks kinda like a pener
Very nice video indeed, Luca! I never have used GHS for stretching my stars. I always used ArcsinhStretch to preserve the color. But i use GHS for my starless image. I wonder what is best...
Luca, quick question. When you were setting the black point with the linear GHS stretch, why did you do it in multiple steps? The reason I ask is there's nothing wrong with moving the black point triangle past where the solid resulting histogram is moving. As long as you're not moving the block point triangle into the outlined current histogram you won't clip any data.
You are absolutely right I am just terrified of clipping it... but you're right it should/could be a single step
Nice job in explaining your processing. One tip: when you remove the pedestal (empty black data to the left of your histogram peak), you adjust it multiple times, because you drag the pointer to the wrong peak. The bright histogram peak is where the data sits after your action. So you can safely drag the pointer further to the right, to the original peak. That means you only need to do it once. Otherwise: keep it up!
thank you! I'll try this. I have this irrational fear of clipping data :D
@the_space_koala I totally get that. PixInsight tells you when the data starts clipping. Low clip (LCP) within GHS -> Linear tells you if and how much blacks are getting clipped when you raise the blackpoint. Have a look at that number when you approach the left hand side of your histogram peak.
Beautifully done!
absolutely excellent, thanks!
Learned new tips on GHS from watching you process this image. Do you have a tutorial on GHS?
no I don't sorry
Just saw your YouTube short on why astrophotography is important to you and should be to others! This is the best video I have seen to promote astrophotography! You are a master communicator! Your enthusiasm is something to enjoy!
that's such a kind thing to say, thank you!
“I’m not familiar with squid anatomy”. I think none of us are 🙂 Lovely video, thanks for sharing.
Met you last year at NEAF , said hello , did not want to bother you. Are you going this year ?
I plan on going - but still waiting for a confirmation!
@the_space_koalaok , I will say hello if I see you there . I am lucky for this one , I only live 40 mins from there
これは女性を喜ばせると噂のアレか？
That is fantastic. I am novice, only shooting in colour so far, but this is so interesting and even though my brain feels a bit scrambled after watching this tutorial it really underlines the complexity but also much higher control when shooting in mono. I am not quite ready to leap into this new world myself just yet, nor is my astrophotography budget, but it is really nice to get a so well explained glimpse of what could be awaiting me in the future, even if I doubt I will ever get anywhere near your level of knowledge and expertise.
thank you for the kind words. TBH if you are shooting with a color camera with a Ha - Oiii dualband filter, once you have the 2 channels separated, the process would be exactly the same!
@the_space_koala Thanks. I will definitely be trying that out but so far I haven't even got to the point of using Ha - Oiii filters either 😆
Thank you, Luca, that was an awesome PI processing tutorial and a gorgeous result!! I had no idea a new instance of Dynamic Crop is possible—super helpful! One quick question about diffraction spikes: would rotating the camera be workable on your rig, or is the current orientation optimal? Thanks again and I hope you get some clear weather soon. P.S. I love your widescreen monitor!
hey! thank you I'm glad you enjoyed the tutorial. Rotating the camera would rotate the whole image, so if I wanted to have the squid in the current orienation, the spikes would not change. In order to rotate the spikes (compared to the sky), I'd have to rotate the tube inside the rings. It's doable but way too much work if I want to optimize it for each image! btw the screen is not as wide as it appears in this shot, the camera I used behind me was an Insta360 action cam and I guess it just warps it a lot :D
Lovely image ❤ I love that you don’t overuse masks. You might try multi-scale adaptive stretch. Image blend script is nice for stars too.
MAS is great, I already tried it on a few images!