Colors

Color Calibration

Siril offers two ways to retrieve the colors of your image. Here, "retrieve" means re-balancing the RGB channels to get as close as possible to the true colors of the shot object.

Manual Color Calibration

Предупреждение

The color calibration must be performed on a linear image whose histogram has not yet been stretched. Otherwise, the colors obtained are not guaranteed to be correct.

The manual way uses the following window:

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Manual Color Calibration dialog window.

The first step deals with the background of your image. The goal is to equalize the RGB layers in order the background appears as a neutral grey color.

After making a selection in your image (in a not so crowdy nor contrasted area), the area is taken into account by clicking on the Use current selection button. The coordinates of the rectangle are displayed. Then Background Neutralization will calculate the median of each channel and equalize them.

The second step deals with the bright objetcs of the picture. You can modify once again the histogram in two ways:

  • Manually, with White reference and the 3 R, G and B coefficients, according to your own taste.

  • Automatically, by selecting a rectangle area with contrasted objects (the same way as previously)

Two sliders allow you to change the rejection limit for too dark and too bright pixels in the selection.

As this is a trial and error process, you can undo the result with the Undo button (up left) and then try with other selections or coefficients until you are satisfied.

Photometric Color Calibration

Предупреждение

The calibration of the colors by photometry must imperatively be carried out on a linear image whose histogram was not yet stretched. Without what, the photometric measurements will be wrong and the colors obtained without guarantee of being correct.

Another way for retrieving the colors is to compare the color of the stars in the image with their color in catalogues, to obtain the most natural color in an automatic and non-subjective way. This is the PCC (Photometric Color Calibration) tool. It can only work for images taken with a set of red, green and blue filters for colors, or on-sensor color. To identify stars within the image with those of the catalogue, an astrometric solution is required. Running the PCC tool will first do that, so for this first part, please see the documentation of the plate solver module.

Примечание

This technique is heavily dependent on the type of filter used. Using different kinds of R, G, B filters will not make a large difference, but using a Light pollution filter or no IR-block filters will make the solution deviate significantly and not give the expected colors.

Since version 1.2, the two tools run independently: it is possible to run the photometric analysis and color correction of the image only if the image has been already plate solved. It also means different catalogues can be used for PCC and astrometry. And now, the tool is also available as the pcc command, so it can be embedded in image post-processing scripts.

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Photometric Color Calibration dialog window.

If the image was previously plate solved, turn on the annotations feature to check that catalogues align with the image. If the astrometric solution is not good enough, checking Force plate solving will force its recomputation as part of the PCC process.

As a reminder from the plate solver documentation, here is a summary of the options visible in the window:

  • Make sure the sampling is correct, computed from the focal length and pixel size found in the image or copied from the settings.

  • The Flip image if needed allows to reorient the image correctly according to the astrometry result.

  • For some oversampled or too large images, it is useful to check the Downsample image to have more chances of success with the plate solving and it's also faster.

  • The Auto-crop (for wide field) option will limit the field to 5 degrees in case you are dealing with very wide field images, mostly useful for plate solving.

  • The Catalog Settings section allows you to choose which photometric catalog should be used, NOMAD or APASS, as well as the limiting magnitude.

    Совет

    The NOMAD catalog can be installed locally, while the APASS catalogue needs an internet access to get its content.

  • The Star Detection section allows you to manually select which stars will be used for the photometry analysis. It's better to have hundreds of them at least, so individual picking would not be ideal.

    PCC star detection
  • If desired, the Background Reference can be manually selected as described in Manual Color Calibration. This can be useful in the case of nebula images where the background sky parts are small.

    PCC background

When enough stars are found and the astrometric solution is correct, the PCC will print this kind of text in the Console tab:

Applying aperture photometry to 433 stars.
70 stars excluded from the calculation
Distribution of errors: 1146 no error, 18 not in area, 48 inner radius too small, 4 pixel out of range
Found a solution for color calibration using 363 stars. Factors:
K0: 0.843       (deviation: 0.140)
K1: 1.000       (deviation: 0.050)
K2: 0.743       (deviation: 0.130)
The photometric color correction seems to have found an imprecise solution, consider correcting the image gradient first

We can understand that 433 stars were selected from the catalogue and the image for photometric analysis, but somehow, only 363 we actually used, 70 being excluded. The line Distribution of errors explains for what reason they were excluded: 18 were not found in the expected position, 48 were too big and 4 probably saturated. It is very common to have many stars rejected because they don't meet the strict requirements for a valid photometric analysis.

We can also see that the PCC found three coefficients to apply to the color channels to correct the white balance. The deviation here, which is the average absolute deviation of the color correction for each of the star of the photometric set, is moderately high. On well calibrated images without gradient, with correct filters and without a color nebula covering the whole image, devation would get closer to 0.

Командная строка Siril

pcc [image_center_coords] [-noflip] [-platesolve] [-focal=] [-pixelsize=] [-limitmag=[+-]] [-catalog=] [-downscale]
Запускает фотометрическую коррекцию цвета загруженного изображения.
Если изображение уже имеет астрономическое решение, оно будет использовано для коррекции цвета. Если же астрономического решения нет, либо если данные WCS или другие метаданные изображения ошибочны или отсутствуют, необходимо передать следующие аргументы для поиска астрономического решения:
приблизительные координаты центра изображения могут быть указаны в виде десятичных градусов или значений градус/час, минута, секунда, разделённые двоеточием (эпоха J2000). Значения прямого восхождения и склонения должны быть разделены запятой или пробелом.
фокусное расстояние и размер пикселя могут быть указаны с помощью -focal= (в миллиметрах) и -pixelsize= (в микрометрах), переопределяя значения, полученные из изображения и настроек.
вы можете принудительно выполнить повторный поиск астрономического решения с помощью флага -platesolve.

Если не указано -noflip и изображение не находится в ориентации вверх ногами, изображение будет перевёрнуто если будет выполнен поиск астрономического решения.
Для более быстрого поиска звёзд на больших изображениях, возможно уменьшить масштаб изображения с помощью -downscale.

Предельный блеск звёзд, используемых для поиска астрономического решения и фотометрической коррекции цвета рассчитывается автоматически исходя из размера поля зрения, но он может быть изменён с помощью значения положительного (+) или отрицательного (-) смещения опции -limitmag=, или просто указанием абсолютного положительного значения для ограничения блеска.
The star catalog used is NOMAD by default, it can be changed by providing -catalog=apass. If installed locally, the remote NOMAD (the complete version) can be forced by providing -catalog=nomad

Ссылка: nomad

Color Saturation

This tool is used to increase the color saturation of the image. It is possible to choose between a specific hue or the global hue to enhance. The strength of the saturation is adjusted with the slider Amount.

The Background factor slider sets the factor multiplied by the background value. Lower is the value, stronger is the saturation effect. While a high value will preserve the background.

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Color Saturation dialog window.

Командная строка Siril

satu amount [background_factor [hue_range_index]]
Улучшает насыщенность цвета загруженного изображения. Для получения наилучших результатов используйте итеративно.
amount положительное значение увеличивает насыщенность цвета, отрицательное — уменьшает, 0 — ничего не делает, 1 — увеличивает насыщенность на 100%
background_factor это коэффициент (медиана + σ), используемый для установки порога, выше которого будет происходить изменение пикселей. При правильном подборе, это позволяет не увеличивать насыщенность цвета фонового шума. Значение по умолчанию — 1. При установке 0 порог отключается.
hue_range_index может быть [0, 6], что означает: 0 от розового до оранжевого, 1 от оранжевого до жёлтого, 2 от жёлтого до голубого, 3 для голубого, 4 от голубого до пурпурного, 5 от пурпурного до розового, 6 все цвета (значение по умолчанию)

Remove Green Noise

Because green is not naturally present in deep sky images (except for comets and some planetary nebulae), if the image has already been calibrated, its colors are well balanced and the image is free of any gradient, we can assume that if the image contains green, it belongs to the noise. It is then interesting to find a method to remove this dominant green. This is exactly what the Remove Green Noise tool proposes, which is derived from the Subtractive Color Noise Reduction tool, but for green only.

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Remove Green Noise dialog window.

Предупреждение

This tool is not intended for direct use on a typical green image from a stack where the background sky level has not been equalized. Its use in such conditions would destroy the image's chrominance.

This tool has 3 settings. The protection method, the amount (called \(a\) in the following section), and a Preserve lightness button. The following methods present the different existing ways to remove the green pixels by replacing them with a mix of Red and Blue. The amount is only available for methods with mask protection. The choice of its value must be done with caution in order to minimize the rise of the magenta cast in the sky background. Do not hesitate to use the Undo and Redo buttons in order to fine-tune the value.

Protection method

Maximum Mask Protection

\[\begin{split}m &= \text{max}(R,B) \\ G'&= G\times (1 — a)\times (1 — m) + m\times G\end{split}\]

Additive Mask Protection

\[\begin{split}m &= \text{min}(1,R+B) \\ G'&= G\times (1 — a)\times (1 — m) + m\times G\end{split}\]

Average Neutral Protection (default method)

\[\begin{split}m &= 0.5\times (R + B) \\ G'&= \text{min}(G, m)\end{split}\]

Maximum Neutral Protection

\[\begin{split}m &= \text{max}(R,B) \\ G'&= \text{min}(G, m)\end{split}\]

Finally, the Preserve lightness button preserves the original CIE L* component in the processed image, in order to only process chromatic component, it is highly recommended to let this option checked.

Командная строка Siril

rmgreen [-nopreserve] [type] [amount]
Применяет фильтр подавления хроматического шума, удаляющий зелёный оттенок на текущем изображении. Этот фильтр основан на SCNR из PixInsight и этот же фильтр используется плагином HLVG в Photoshop.
По умолчанию светлота сохраняется, но это может быть отключено с помощью -nopreserve.

Аргумент type может принимать значения 0 для средний нейтральный, 1 для максимальный нейтральный, 2 для максимальная маска и 3 для аддитивная маска. По умолчанию — 0. Последние два могут принимать аргумент amount со значением между 0 и 1. Значение по умолчанию — 1

Negative Transform

Negative transformation refers to subtracting pixel values from \((L−1)\), where \(L\) is the maximum possible value of the pixel, and replacing it with the result.

The Negative transformation tool is different from the negative view negative-icon in the toolbar. Indeed, the transformation is not only visual, but actually applied to the pixel values. If you save the image, it will be saved as a negative.

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Original image with weak signal (Image Cyril Richard).

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Negative image where the signal is more visible (Image Cyril Richard).

Совет

A common use of the negative transformation tool is to remove the magenta cast from SHO images. In this case one need to apply Negative transformation, then Remove Green Noise, then Negative transformation again.

Командная строка Siril

neg
Изменяет значения пикселей загруженного в настоящий момент изображения на отрицательное представление, например, 1-значение для 32 бит, 65535-значение для 16 бит. Режим просмотра при этом не изменяется