RE: [APML] A little M31 & M45

["Scott Hammonds" <shammonds@creatorsview.com>]

Wei-Hao, Stuart, Chris S, Jose,
Thank you all for the nice comments. I am happy with the M31, it is without
question my best effort on this object. Although the M45 is probably also my
best effort on this object, I'm still not satisfied. I appreciate the all of
the comments on smoothing. 

For the most part I think less is better. There is definitely a line that
can be crossed for to much and this is probably a matter of taste.  In my
M45, it seems close so I'll give it another try. Thanks again.

Scott

Scott Hammonds
www.creatorsview.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Wei-Hao Wang [mailto:whwang@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 6:26 PM
To: Discussion of Film Astrophotography
Subject: Re: [APML] A little M31 & M45

Scott, those are beautiful images.  I especially like the colors.

As for the smoothing issue, I don't think Scott's images are too smooth or
artificial at all.  The look very nice.  However, in general, I do prefer
images with a little noise/grain left.  

In an image, usually the faintest areas are full of noise/grain and the very
bright pixels are real signals.  However, the transition between noise and
low level signal is continuous.  There is always a brightness range where
noise and low level signal coexist and cannot exactly tell what is noise.
When we look at such an area, our eyes are annoyed by the noise but can
still recognize some pattern which may well be real signal.  I like to
protect such an area from being smoothed.  
Otherwise I lose those signals and the image looks too smooth.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Wei-Hao

--
________________________________________________________________
Wei-Hao Wang  :)

Institute for Astronomy at University of Hawaii

Address:                       
2680 Woodlawn Drive         Personal Website:
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