On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 09:53:45 +0100, "Robert Geake"
wrote:

We have seemed to miss the main point of my post! The question i pose is
basicly how much proccesing is too much. The differences between your M31
pre and post proccessing are clear, at that point i would say thats far
enough, the image looks far better than the original and indeed, far better
than any of us will see with our 1/60 eyes!

My own personal belief is that many imagers are confused souls. What's
the point of taking an image? Is it to create something of beauty or
is it to reveal hidden details locked away inside all of that data.
The two don't necessarily go hand in hand.

Do you balance your photo to make it look aesthetically pleasing - a
work of art - or do you push it hard to reveal those elusive details?

DSO's are a strange target in this respect because, unless you're
actively doing something for scientific recording purposes (which 95%
of DSO imagers aren't), then the purpose, logically, has to be to
create a thing of beauty. This requires balance and finness in the
final image, something that's constantly fighting against the inner
yearning to see just how far you actually did go, or can go with
additional processing.

Perhaps I'm just tired - it was a late and breezy night last night ;-)

--
Pete
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk