Overheard a guy at the stargazing event say my pic was 'overprocessed'

I was showing off my stacked Andromeda photo I spent 4 hours on last Saturday, and this dude with a cheap scope muttered it looked like a painting. He said the colors were too punchy compared to what you'd see through an eyepiece. Am I wrong for wanting my photos to pop more than the naked eye can catch?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowanp153d ago

That guy at my local club last month said my Orion Nebula shot "looked like a Hubble screenshot" and I was honestly proud of that. Why spend all that time stacking exposures if you're supposed to make it look like a faint gray smudge through a budget eyepiece? Astro processing is basically painting with data anyway, you know, so let the colors sing.

robert_bennett293d ago

Man, I feel that. People get weirdly gatekeepy about what astro photos are supposed to look like, but the whole point of processing is to bring out details our eyes just can't see on their own. Your shot sounds like it came out great, and honestly, if someone's comparing your work to Hubble, that's a compliment worth taking to the bank.