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for Blue. The number of saved files will add up quickly, since four images are
needed for one single color image.
It is important to clearly label your folders when autosaving to ensure that you
can easily follow which files belong to each image. Creating dedicated folder
for each new deep sky image is highly recommended. Creating a folder called
“OrionNebula” would then contain only the images taken for that object.
Combine Color
With the SSDSMI-2, MaxIm DL Essentials allocates four different channels –
Luminance, Red, Green, and Blue (LRGB). By combining all of your individual
black and white images taken through each LRGB filter, your monochrome
images will transform into vivid full-color astrophotos!
Before selecting the images to color combine, you must first Combine each
color channel by stacking the individual images taken through each color filter.
Make sure you save each combined image so you can go back to it anytime
to reprocess.
There are two modes of color combining, LRGB and RGB. You may choose
RGB if you do not have or wish to create a luminance channel. This saves time
because fewer images need to be taken, but at the expense of having less
image detail. For the best results, we recommending taking images with all
four channels in LRGB.
1. In the File menu, Open the images that you will be using to color com-
bine. In most cases you will open 4 files total, one for each color channel,
Luminance, Red, Green, and Blue.
2. In the Process menu, select Combine Color.
3. Check the settings in the Color Space box, select LRGB. Make sure the
Auto Equalize Background box is checked. In the pull down menu, use
CIE L*a*b. You can also experiment using RGB which has a different color
combine algorithm. Color Balance should be left at "1" for Red, Green, and
Blue.
4. In the Select Images box, select your images for Luminance, Red, Green,
and Blue (Figure 14).
5. Click on Align Images (Figure 15). The alignment process is similar to the
combine process. This allows each image to overlap perfectly before com-
bining the color image. For Align Mode, choose Manual 1 star - shift only.
If your polar alignment was poor or if you were tracking using an altitude-
azimuth mount, choose Manual 2 stars.
6. Click OK and the resulting image should appear in color. You can make sev-
eral adjustments to the Color Balance if needed (see “Color Balance”).
7. Save your color image.