M81 is an incredibly beautiful target all on its own. When one of my teammates,
@gmadkat, suggested we try for some IFN, I was not sure I was going to enjoy the result. I haven't liked many images that include IFN because they either destroy galaxy detail or they look over processed to me. The latter is a purely subjective thing I don't mean to cast aspersions on anyone else's images. It just wasn't what I wanted to produce. So I went into this hoping I could do something that would make me happy and not make me too crazy. I succeeded on one part.
I went through a lot of different iterations trying to bring out the IFN in a pleasing way and, while it was interesting, it was also pretty hard to look at. I suspect the high read noise on this old 16803 sensor is making things a lot harder for this particular case.
So, after days of trying diferent approach, I ultimately decided to go with a more standard type of processing that didn't push things so hard.
Lum:
dynamic crop
decnvolution
DBE
noiseXterminator
GHS script
starnet2
HDRMT
LHE
clone stamp (remove a starnet artifact)
RGB
dynamic crop
DBE
noiseXterminator
GHS
starnet2
LRGBCombination in lum
Curves (color & contrast)
pixel math in stars
L and RGB stars
LRGBCombination in L stars to RGB stars
One day I'll try the IFN thing again with a different camera and see what happens.
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