Star Halo Removal In Pixinsight Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · Justin Worden · ... · 32 · 1892 · 2

Justin Worden:
Hello all. I'm looking for advice on this image. I can't seem to find a way to deal with the large star halo in pixinsight. The halo appears in the blue and green channels. Any help is appreciated.

https://astrob.in/4rxkpa/0/

may be helpful to you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usiIVvfnhHI

I like your image! But when personally processing, I find if you dont over stretch them then you wont have to correct them later. I clone my DBE'd image, do an SPCC to get RGB appropriate stars then remove them while linear - I prefer StarXTerminator but they're all pretty good. 
I do my inital stretch with histrogram transformation without over stretching the big guys then use GAME to mask them out and continue to stretch the little guys. You have to be generous with your mask. Its just a quick slide of the midtone slider and takes all of 30-60 seconds to complete. Then hit wtih SCNR if needed (always needed for me). Set aside and process your target. 

In the end, I recombine with my prcocessed starless, reduce halo's further if existant via BlurXTerminator then use Bills star reduction scripts (now avail with live preview btw) to taste. 

Good luck!

Scott Horton:
I like your image! But when personally processing, I find if you dont over stretch them then you wont have to correct them later. I clone my DBE'd image, do an SPCC to get RGB appropriate stars then remove them while linear - I prefer StarXTerminator but they're all pretty good. 
I do my inital stretch with histrogram transformation wtihout over stretching the big guys then use GAME to mask them out and continue to stretch the little guys. You have to be generous with your mask. Its just a quick slide of the midtone slider and takes all of 30-60 seconds to complete. Then hit wtih SCNR if needed (always needed for me). Set aside and process your target. 

In the end, I recombine wtih my prcocessed starless, reduce halo's further if existant via BlurXTerminator then use Bills star reduction scripts (now avail with live preview btw) to taste. 

Good luck!

Can you detail how you recombine the stars with the target?  I have been experimenting with this for the first time this week.  I used pixelmath to simply add them together, but it seemed to blend them instead of just adding them one over the other.  Both the nebulosity was affected by the pixelmath addition and the stars, themselves changed.

Scott Horton:

Greg Mason:

Scott Horton:
I like your image! But when personally processing, I find if you dont over stretch them then you wont have to correct them later. I clone my DBE'd image, do an SPCC to get RGB appropriate stars then remove them while linear - I prefer StarXTerminator but they're all pretty good. 
I do my inital stretch with histrogram transformation wtihout over stretching the big guys then use GAME to mask them out and continue to stretch the little guys. You have to be generous with your mask. Its just a quick slide of the midtone slider and takes all of 30-60 seconds to complete. Then hit wtih SCNR if needed (always needed for me). Set aside and process your target. 

In the end, I recombine wtih my prcocessed starless, reduce halo's further if existant via BlurXTerminator then use Bills star reduction scripts (now avail with live preview btw) to taste. 

Good luck!

Can you detail how you recombine the stars with the target?  I have been experimenting with this for the first time this week.  I used pixelmath to simply add them together, but it seemed to blend them instead of just adding them one over the other.  Both the nebulosity was affected by the pixelmath addition and the stars, themselves changed.

Absolutely - when done processing, name your stars "stars" and your starless "starless", then use the screen function pixelmath expression:  combine(stars, starless, op_screen())
Make sure your stars image is selected when you apply the pixelmath and be absolutely sure whatever you name your images you use the same in the expresion including caps. Then save this little bad boy in your tool box. I would also encourage Bill Blanshan's star reduction techniques edited to your taste when done.

I’m on it tomorrow.  Thanks.  My feeble attempts at Google turned nothing up the past couple of days.  I tried all kinds of crazy things.  Finally, just stretched it until I was satisfied with the stars, and masked them as I continued to stretch it.  Worked ok, but figured there had to be a better way.

Thanks.