First off... thank you for showing us a modern method of how to go about colorizing astrophotography. Years ago, I remember purchasing a VHS tape of "The Man Who Colors Stars" and it was really fascinating to understand better the processes involved to get those amazing coffee table books with the spectacular astrophotography images... especially the nebulas! As a kid, I actually thought that was what those nebulas looked like in nature... all those colors. When I was a bit older and looked at the Orion nebula through a telescope, I wondered, "where are all those colors?" I then realized they had done some processes to get those colors and that's why I searched for how it was done and found that VHS tape. Of course, that video showed how they did it the "analog" way and now you've shown us a more modern "digital" process. I also wanted to thank you for listing your equipment in the description of this video. Now... my first impressions watching your video here: 1. Your footage with you and your telescope behind you... the colors are so faded and washed out! This made me immediately worry that your astrophotography would be suffering the same fate. Perhaps invest in some better lighting and reflection panels to brighten up your physical space? Maybe some color correction in post production? I'm only saying this since this is what the viewer is seeing first and it is not such a great first impression. Also, to have more consistent colors between your dialog footage and your computer footage... this will just make the whole presentation feel so much more cohesive and professional. And I think you deserve that, considering the quality of content/instruction you're trying to providing us :) 2. You had a spot in your video where the audio cut out. Well, instead of telling us about it, why not just fix it in post? Just re-record the missing dialog and edit it in. That's the beauty of doing digital video and using an NLE... you CAN fix things in post. 3. Having some background music was nice to avoid the "dry lecture" feel... so, thanks for that. 4. I think I'll have to watch this video a few times to be able to follow it properly. I found myself getting a little lost at times and therefore losing focus/attention, since I think I didn't quite understand why we were doing what we were doing at times. I do appreciate you showing us the range of settings at each step to understand why you were picking the final setting you did pick (e.g. the black point... dragging the point around to show us why we want to set it close but not too close). So, if you can do anything to help us understand the overall process in a nutshell and where we're at in the overall process, I think that'd help us know what we're trying to accomplish at each step. Perhaps, if you could show us a TO DO list at 2:04 and briefly go over it so we could get an overview of the whole process before diving directly into it, I think that would help a lot... or at least help me, as I'm a "need to see the big picture first" type of person. I mean, you're using terms like "stretch", etc. that I'm not familiar with in this context. And what does the Nuke button do? Thank you for telling me you're pressing it but I don't really understand why you're pressing it vs. other buttons... or what it does exactly. "BlurXTerminator... need to do it in linear mode before stretching." I mean... what is linear mode or stretching in this context? So, anything you can do to help us noobs to understand the process better would be great. A quick overview of the process and even a quick overview of your software package... and some of the terms you'll be using. It's all so very important in order to be able to keep up with your explanation. Otherwise, we get lost... and once lost, people lose interest and it's off to another UA-cam video. I hope you will view my comments as constructive suggestions. Again, thank you for providing this video. I always wanted to know more about the astrophotography coloring process. Hopefully my suggestions will help your content to really pop, be more easy to follow instruction-wise, and gain the subscribers/supporters it deserves. Keep posting more vids. I look forward to more understanding in this field of study... thank you for providing it :)
@@cydonical Hello and thank you much for this feedback, I truly appreciate this! Overall I agree with everything you wrote and I have been thinking the same things, whilst other things are a bit more complex and I need to compromise. 1. I feel the same as you with the washed out colors of the video. I haven’t fully mastered color grading videos yet but I’m working on it! That’s one of the reasons I started this UA-cam channel as well! Color grading videos and post process photographs are two very different things and I’m way better at photos than videos :) 2. The video was annoying to say the least. I never occurred to me to do a voice over, thanks for that! 3. 👍🏼 4. This is more of a compromise for me. I need to target two different audiences, one that is completely new to the terminologies and processes and one that watch the video to get new tips and tricks when already knowing some of the tools like Blur exterminator (sharpening of the image) and stretching (spread out the data to the whole histogram). Maybe I should do two or three different videos on different levels. I think you’ll find the next video to have a more pleasing color grading though, I’m still working on it and will try harder to make it better. So again, thanks for your tips and feedback and thanks for watching, it means a lot!
@@GediAstro I was just thinking about your response to #4 and I think I have a solution. I had a similar problem writing documentation one time for a technical process... I was left wondering, "Who am I writing this for? Someone who is new to all of this? Or someone who is proficient with this technology?" I was concerned it might have to be performed by someone who was new to it all, so I decided to write it with detailed steps... but it made the process very tedious and I imagine anyone trying to follow those steps would have not enjoyed it, whether that person was new to it or experienced. So, with all that in mind, what I think would really work here is to make a separate video (or videos) to serve as a primer to help the new folk get up to speed. This way, you can continue making videos aimed at those proficient in the field but also provide a way for those new to it to get up to speed. You could then quickly state somewhere in the beginning of your videos that you will be presenting at a level of someone proficient in the field and if anyone is new to the field, to watch your Astrophotography primer/basics video, "link in the description" (and maybe have a popup bubble with the link too). Something like, "Astrophotography 101: apps overviews and related terminology". (And my apologies if you already have videos about all this... this is the first of your videos I've come across and I did notice you have a fair amount of other videos as well, so maybe this is all covered already... I'll try to view more of them soon. But even if you have covered this, mentioning links to them early in your future videos is a still a valid suggestion, since the UA-cam algorithm might suggest your newer stuff as opposed to earlier videos, so people will likely run into your newer videos first vs. your earlier ones ... and this whole scenario will play out repeatedly). Personally, I'd love to get an overview of what apps are out there now and the differences between them... and why you settled on PixInsight (vs. something else). Also, any side utility apps you find useful too (not just the major apps). As for me, I'm still stuck on the PC and I can see you're on a Mac, so if you can give recommendations for PC users for anything that is "Mac only", that would be great. Then, you could give us an overview of PixInsight and what its different sub-modules do. If the software is pretty deep in its functionality, I would suggest you could say something like "I'll go over the main modules I regularly use and also how I use them." Then, go over the modules... and maybe show some real examples that go through the process of using them, so it's not just "theory" shown but also practical application. And at some point, go over the terminology as well (e.g. what are histograms and how they are presented/used, same with "stretch", etc.). This way, if people have more "basics" questions, they will be contained in the comments of those videos and not dragged out across your regular videos. This will make it so you can skinny down the "TO DO" list I suggested earlier to something like an outline of procedures you'll be performing in a given video. I still think it's a good idea to have an outline presented at the beginning of the video, so people can have a feel of what will be presented in the video (i.e. a "roadmap" of sorts). And maybe just show an arrow pointing to which step you're on occasionally, to help people follow along more easily. Well, hopefully you'll find these suggestions useful. I wish I had more help to offer to help with the #1 issues (washed out colors) but I'm still learning a lot in that camp too. If I do find out something to help, I'll pass it along.
Wow, that's a stark difference when you zoom in and show the difference between yours and Hubble. Incredible how detailed. More telescopes!
Indeed so :) More more!! :)
NASA = Photo Shop
First off... thank you for showing us a modern method of how to go about colorizing astrophotography. Years ago, I remember purchasing a VHS tape of "The Man Who Colors Stars" and it was really fascinating to understand better the processes involved to get those amazing coffee table books with the spectacular astrophotography images... especially the nebulas! As a kid, I actually thought that was what those nebulas looked like in nature... all those colors. When I was a bit older and looked at the Orion nebula through a telescope, I wondered, "where are all those colors?" I then realized they had done some processes to get those colors and that's why I searched for how it was done and found that VHS tape. Of course, that video showed how they did it the "analog" way and now you've shown us a more modern "digital" process. I also wanted to thank you for listing your equipment in the description of this video.
Now... my first impressions watching your video here:
1. Your footage with you and your telescope behind you... the colors are so faded and washed out! This made me immediately worry that your astrophotography would be suffering the same fate. Perhaps invest in some better lighting and reflection panels to brighten up your physical space? Maybe some color correction in post production? I'm only saying this since this is what the viewer is seeing first and it is not such a great first impression. Also, to have more consistent colors between your dialog footage and your computer footage... this will just make the whole presentation feel so much more cohesive and professional. And I think you deserve that, considering the quality of content/instruction you're trying to providing us :)
2. You had a spot in your video where the audio cut out. Well, instead of telling us about it, why not just fix it in post? Just re-record the missing dialog and edit it in. That's the beauty of doing digital video and using an NLE... you CAN fix things in post.
3. Having some background music was nice to avoid the "dry lecture" feel... so, thanks for that.
4. I think I'll have to watch this video a few times to be able to follow it properly. I found myself getting a little lost at times and therefore losing focus/attention, since I think I didn't quite understand why we were doing what we were doing at times. I do appreciate you showing us the range of settings at each step to understand why you were picking the final setting you did pick (e.g. the black point... dragging the point around to show us why we want to set it close but not too close). So, if you can do anything to help us understand the overall process in a nutshell and where we're at in the overall process, I think that'd help us know what we're trying to accomplish at each step. Perhaps, if you could show us a TO DO list at 2:04 and briefly go over it so we could get an overview of the whole process before diving directly into it, I think that would help a lot... or at least help me, as I'm a "need to see the big picture first" type of person. I mean, you're using terms like "stretch", etc. that I'm not familiar with in this context. And what does the Nuke button do? Thank you for telling me you're pressing it but I don't really understand why you're pressing it vs. other buttons... or what it does exactly. "BlurXTerminator... need to do it in linear mode before stretching." I mean... what is linear mode or stretching in this context? So, anything you can do to help us noobs to understand the process better would be great. A quick overview of the process and even a quick overview of your software package... and some of the terms you'll be using. It's all so very important in order to be able to keep up with your explanation. Otherwise, we get lost... and once lost, people lose interest and it's off to another UA-cam video.
I hope you will view my comments as constructive suggestions. Again, thank you for providing this video. I always wanted to know more about the astrophotography coloring process. Hopefully my suggestions will help your content to really pop, be more easy to follow instruction-wise, and gain the subscribers/supporters it deserves. Keep posting more vids. I look forward to more understanding in this field of study... thank you for providing it :)
@@cydonical Hello and thank you much for this feedback, I truly appreciate this! Overall I agree with everything you wrote and I have been thinking the same things, whilst other things are a bit more complex and I need to compromise.
1. I feel the same as you with the washed out colors of the video. I haven’t fully mastered color grading videos yet but I’m working on it! That’s one of the reasons I started this UA-cam channel as well! Color grading videos and post process photographs are two very different things and I’m way better at photos than videos :)
2. The video was annoying to say the least. I never occurred to me to do a voice over, thanks for that!
3. 👍🏼
4. This is more of a compromise for me. I need to target two different audiences, one that is completely new to the terminologies and processes and one that watch the video to get new tips and tricks when already knowing some of the tools like Blur exterminator (sharpening of the image) and stretching (spread out the data to the whole histogram). Maybe I should do two or three different videos on different levels.
I think you’ll find the next video to have a more pleasing color grading though, I’m still working on it and will try harder to make it better.
So again, thanks for your tips and feedback and thanks for watching, it means a lot!
@@GediAstro I was just thinking about your response to #4 and I think I have a solution. I had a similar problem writing documentation one time for a technical process... I was left wondering, "Who am I writing this for? Someone who is new to all of this? Or someone who is proficient with this technology?" I was concerned it might have to be performed by someone who was new to it all, so I decided to write it with detailed steps... but it made the process very tedious and I imagine anyone trying to follow those steps would have not enjoyed it, whether that person was new to it or experienced. So, with all that in mind, what I think would really work here is to make a separate video (or videos) to serve as a primer to help the new folk get up to speed. This way, you can continue making videos aimed at those proficient in the field but also provide a way for those new to it to get up to speed. You could then quickly state somewhere in the beginning of your videos that you will be presenting at a level of someone proficient in the field and if anyone is new to the field, to watch your Astrophotography primer/basics video, "link in the description" (and maybe have a popup bubble with the link too). Something like, "Astrophotography 101: apps overviews and related terminology". (And my apologies if you already have videos about all this... this is the first of your videos I've come across and I did notice you have a fair amount of other videos as well, so maybe this is all covered already... I'll try to view more of them soon. But even if you have covered this, mentioning links to them early in your future videos is a still a valid suggestion, since the UA-cam algorithm might suggest your newer stuff as opposed to earlier videos, so people will likely run into your newer videos first vs. your earlier ones ... and this whole scenario will play out repeatedly).
Personally, I'd love to get an overview of what apps are out there now and the differences between them... and why you settled on PixInsight (vs. something else). Also, any side utility apps you find useful too (not just the major apps). As for me, I'm still stuck on the PC and I can see you're on a Mac, so if you can give recommendations for PC users for anything that is "Mac only", that would be great. Then, you could give us an overview of PixInsight and what its different sub-modules do. If the software is pretty deep in its functionality, I would suggest you could say something like "I'll go over the main modules I regularly use and also how I use them." Then, go over the modules... and maybe show some real examples that go through the process of using them, so it's not just "theory" shown but also practical application. And at some point, go over the terminology as well (e.g. what are histograms and how they are presented/used, same with "stretch", etc.). This way, if people have more "basics" questions, they will be contained in the comments of those videos and not dragged out across your regular videos.
This will make it so you can skinny down the "TO DO" list I suggested earlier to something like an outline of procedures you'll be performing in a given video. I still think it's a good idea to have an outline presented at the beginning of the video, so people can have a feel of what will be presented in the video (i.e. a "roadmap" of sorts). And maybe just show an arrow pointing to which step you're on occasionally, to help people follow along more easily.
Well, hopefully you'll find these suggestions useful. I wish I had more help to offer to help with the #1 issues (washed out colors) but I'm still learning a lot in that camp too. If I do find out something to help, I'll pass it along.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
🤣🤣🤣
Of course you cannot compare. 😎
Where are the details in your photo?😎 (😁😁😁)
@@pittyman 😂it was for fun :)