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That overprocessed nebula photo I posted last week, here's what I do now
Used to crank up saturation and sharpening until every space photo looked like a neon poster, you know? Last week I posted a shot of the Orion Nebula and someone called me out for the stars having weird halos around them. I compared my old edit to the raw stacked frames and the difference was honestly embarrassing. Now I keep the processing minimal, just basic curves and noise reduction, and I check the star edges at 100% zoom before I upload. Anyone else ever get caught overdoing it and had to redo their whole workflow?
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black.jordan1mo ago
The zoom check thing is huge. I started doing the same but at 200% on a few bright stars, and you can catch stuff you'd never see at fit-to-screen. What really got me was realizing sharpening is what kills the star halos, not saturation. Even a small unsharp mask makes those little rings pop out. Now I do noise reduction first, then a tiny bit of curves, and I leave sharpening off completely unless the shot really needs it. My old edits look like a children's coloring book next to what I get now.
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