Arguing with a pal over how much to edit astro shots. Where do you draw the line?

I like boosting colors to make nebulae pop, but he says it's fake. Curious what this community thinks.

3 comments

3 Comments

honestly that argument is so common lol. i see it as all astro photos need editing just to pull out the faint data. my line is i won't add colors or objects that weren't there, but i'll totally stretch the data to make the existing colors stronger. if your camera captured the wavelength, making it visible is just showing what's already there.

piperm381mo ago

Totally with Umar59, we're just cleaning the window to see what's already there.

dakotajones1mo ago

Back up your raw files first, then feel free to stretch the data as needed.