M51 in HaLRGB-Photoshop Part 1

The Layer Groups

Here are the layer groups that compose this image. Let's look at each group in detail.

Luminence Group

The Lum group will provide the detail. Here is a closeup of the core with no processing applied.

All layers in the Lum group.

LUm.tif: with Smart Sharpen, applied only to the galaxy core using a mask.

Lum.tif copy: applied some noise reduction to the background using the Camera Raw Filter and a mask.

Levels 7: Levels adjustment layer to add contrast.

This mask reduces the effect on fainter parts of the image.

Moving the midpoint slider to the right darkens the midtones.

Before brightening (dodging).

After dodging.

Layer 1:

This is a blank layer in "soft light" blending mode.

We can lighten or darken areas by painting on this layer in black or white.

Here I've brought out the faint tidal regions by painting white with the brush opacity around 5%.

RGB Group

The entire RGB layer group is set in "color" blending mode. It will only provide color, not detail.

The layers in the RGB layer group.

Raw RGB data with no processing and no Lum applied.

Levels 4: Use levels to darken the shadow regions and add some richness to the darker colors of the galaxy.

Moving the blackpoint slider to the right darkens the shadows.

Hue/Saturation 4

The mask limits the effects to the galaxy. We don't want to add saturation to the dark sky background.

The Hue/Saturation layer settings. The colored circles with small dots underneath indicate we made specific changes to those colors, as well as the global increase in saturation seen here.

The combined Lum and RGB layer groups.

Now it's time to add Halpha data and do some adjustments to the entire image.

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