Hi Stefan,
sorry … better late than never:
AutoDev (redo global stretch)
As said, I think the most important point is to
gain experience setting the right ROI. I often chose square shaped ROIs, but these rectangular shape like you did, may be better suited. The most difficult point in my eyes is to find the right brightness and noise level for the background, as it has severe impact on the resulting image. Changing display brightness levels and ambience lights make it even more tricky. I will take a reference screenshot from the outcome of AutoDev and will use it later on for comparison when doing AutoDev on other images. Just a try …
Contrast, HDR, Wavelet Sharpen
OK, nothing special about these steps. (I am not sure, if HDR had a stronger impact in the past. Maybe my old data sets had other characteristics or previous versions of ST behaved not likewise.)
Spatially Variant PSF Deconvolution
Don't know what to say. Wow
. As you said, a great tool. It must be some kind of magic.
Color
I noticed, that you set Cap Green to 100 % and Highlight Repair to 10 px, but with little (?) impact.
Shrink
I never used this module before, but I surely will do that in future. Maybe cosmetic, but it really helps making the image looking more convenient.
Super Structure
Another magic tool. As I took my first noisy images, this module made my day. I read that it is possible to use it twice, but I never did it. In my eyes, this is the most striking difference between your and my first rendition. It is important to use it with care, you did it by reducing the Strength parameter for 'DimSmall' and adjusting the Saturation parameter for the 'Saturate' run. Thanks for pointing out, this will help me to improve my next renditions.
De-Noise
Thanks to tracking, this module ‘knows’ where and how the noise has to be reduced. Fascinating. I have the impression, that it works best, when the Superstructure module has been used previously in the workflow.
FilmDev
Have you noticed, that the image gets slightly darker, when the module it started, without setting Digitial Development or other parameters? I wonder why? I think, this effect, together with setting Skyglow to 2 % afterwards, seems to mitigate the mottling of the background a little. That’s quite nice.
All in all it’s the sum of multiple points, which makes your rendition look that fine. Thanks again, this will surely help to improve my renditions.
With my next post, I would like to share my ASTAP stack and maybe you could take a look … but as said, only if you like ...
Best regards, Dietmar.