GIMP Astrophotography Editing Tutorial

[@AstroFarsography]

Hey all. I had many messages saying the data link wasn't working. I've since fixed that, so enjoy! Thanks for letting me know!

[@nadineperera6882]

Thank you so much for the great tutorial! I've also noticed the data was gone a few months ago, now I saw that it was back and I could do the tutorial and I've learned so much :-)

[@rocklicker-oh6yj]

Hey AstroFarsography, I just wanted to thank you for this tutorial! I've been dabbling in amateur astrophotography for a few years and I exclusively use GIMP for processing. Every single time I process a new image, I open up this video and watch/listen as I go through my processing. I've watched this video dozens of times throughout the last few years, and I'll continue to do so. So thank you so much, you've helped me immensely!

[@AstroFarsography]

Hey mate thanks for your comment, that's really nice to hear how you've benefitted from my video, happy to have been able to help you out! All the best and clear skies mate

[@raylyndaschilke8686]

I just started in astrophotography 6 months ago and this was so helpful. I have been frustrated as there is so much to learn in this hobby. This is the first video I have found that explained in plain English what is supposed to be done during processing after DSS. Thank you for being so easy to listen to and to follow at your pace. I walked through this with you and came out with a decent Rosette Nebula (one of my stacked images that red applied to). I will watch many more times as at the end with the brush and contrast parts I think I finally popped a blood vessel in my brain : ) At 58 years old I really needed to see this to give me hope that I "will get it" some day. Thank you again.

[@AstroFarsography]

You are very welcome. Thank you for the words about the tutorial! I hope to see your rosette nebula someday as well! My main intention was to go at a steady pace and clarity. I also try to explain what things so rather than just "do this", as if you know the system you can then apply it better than just being told to do it

[@Ghostflyer63]

I would love to see you process a galaxy image. This really helped me a lot. Thanks for posting it!

[@RichNH]

I picked up my first astrocamera 8 months ago (ASI533MC) and have been puzzled about post-processing ever since. Your's is the first video I've seen that walked me through the steps and I cannot tell you how much it's helped me to understand what to do. Thank you for a great video.

[@flanagon360]

really helpful, I know it seems obvious to you, but when learning people saying "right click here", "now I'm pressing this" etc makes it so much easier to follow when I'm trying to learn by doing it with you. keep it up!

[@peters4040]

WoW. This was very complete and included a test file so we could edit along with the video. This man is a true teacher. Liked and subscribed. Please do a tutorial using Gimp on a galaxy from a raw stacked or otherwise image. It is hard to know how to bring out the correct detail in a galaxy like m31 or m33 Triangulum or the m101 Pinwheel. This would be very helpful since Gimp is free and a very good editor. Thanks again. Harry

[@joecooksey6948]

I am not even half way through this and this is hands down the best tutorial on GIMP! Thanks a million.

[@scotthoch8833]

I can't tell you how many times I've referenced your tutorial over the past couple of years. It doesn't cover all the things I need to do but it is truly a well done bit. GIMP has changed a lot since then, but the basics haven't changed. Good job and thank you for putting this out there!

[@KYREKING]

So is not necessary to get darks, flats... images right? Or we should go to deepskystackr before we use gimp?

[@gustavbertelsen7633]

Great tutorial! I would love some more gimp tutorials!

[@AstroFarsography]

Many thanks! I'm working on them for you fine people!

[@DB2023Space]

Fantastic example using GIMP. I made some typed notes which amounted to about 50 steps so I could apply your method to my next image. GIMP is my preferred editor since I'm trying to avoid PS and PI if I can. Many thanks for a really nice image and very well done tutorial!

[@abhishekdubey5326]

Awesome tutorial. I am about to start astrophotography and getting hold of some basics. This has been very insightful and motivating. Thanks a lot.

[@febsat]

This was extremely helpful. I used SIRIL to stack my own data of NGC 7000 (lights, darks, flats & biases). Opened the result.fit in GIMP with no problem. Followed you for most of that post processing and ended up with a rather stunning final image. Thanks for all of that. I certainly enjoy your GIMP tutorials.

[@curtzblues]

25:30 "I'm not used to GIMP" means I have no chance. That was magic, but you showed us how...Thank you.

[@hobbeeswe7472]

As a noob I am very thankful for this walk through, but I am also very frustrated with the lack of explanations. As an example, at around 12:50-13:10 a layer suddenly appears after hearing you tap the keys on your keyboard. It has taken me 2 hours to get 13 minutes into the video going back and forth trying to understand what you are doing since there are no captions of explanations for a lot of the things you do, but this move is like the trick of an illusionist. Maybe I get it if I once again back up to the last time you made a selection via colour. What do you do beyween 12:50 and 13:10 to create the new layer? Thanks in advance. Ps. I am very thankful for helping me understanding, despite it being a bitr of hard work ;)

[@CaptainCaveman60]

this is one of the best tutorials for gimp/astrophotos out there!

[@paulrichardson2170]

This is completely amazing! The fluency of the commentary, the "fireside chat" style, the intricacy of the steps and the workmanship demonstrated are really impressive. I have only just started astrophotography in the last few months, and been processing with some very very basic tools, so getting into Gimp is quite intimidating, but I can see I will come back to this time and again. THANKYOU!

[@wdavis6814]

10/10 tutorial, my man! I just got back into astrophotography, and the only thing I remembered was how to polar align and stack images. This tutorial is a huge help!

[@WillGilpin]

Adding the tutorial image file is a really nice touch, changing it from yet-another-youtube-tutorial to a mini course. Love it. Thanks!

[@AstroFarsography]

Want more tutorials? Ask away, and check the links in the description for the editing playlist! Be sure to show me your results!

[@TiagoRamos79]

Thanks so much for the tutorial. When you resized the photo to 1290 x 1293, you chose lower in the quality / interpolation: Linear? ; Cubic?

[@AstroFarsography]

@@TiagoRamos79 hmm I can't rightly remember. I think I left it default!

[@TiagoRamos79]

@@AstroFarsography Thanks.

[@AstroFarsography]

@@TiagoRamos79 I'm back at the computer now and checked it. Used scale image, and set the image size as 1920x1293 with cubic interpolation

[@TiagoRamos79]

@@AstroFarsography Thanks.

[@timburgess1528]

thank you so much for putting the effort in making and sharing this. I am new to photo processing so haven't yet got my head around layers and opacity and masks etc etc, so a LOT for me to learn. I will be coming back to this video many times I think. Many thanks!

[@ResQuetzal]

You have saved me hours of learning in Gimp! You are awesome. Awesome picture at the end!

[@astronebulee578]

Really enjoying this tutorial and giving me a much needed boost in my processing, though I can't find the tools options box for colour select so I can change the threshold to 50 without this I get a hard edge around my stars when I stretch the curves for the background

[@catallaxy]

Great tutorial, not my genre but, you showed a lot of very useful stuff. Thank you.

[@mattsmith010171]

Yes I agree Gustav. Want to see more GIMP editing sessions.

[@homerjones9579]

I am very new to astrophotography. This tutorial is fantastic, especially since you provided the data so I could work along with you. At the end, I had a beautiful image that would not have been possible without your instruction. The only missing piece is how you captured the data. Specifically, lens/telescope specs, exposure, number of lights, darks, flats, etc. I only ask because, while I haven't taken many astrophotos, what I have done has been pretty poor. Your NA Nebula is superb. Thank you so very much

[@Chababa71]

Good work. Nicely paced and clearly spoken.

[@kylecormier9930]

This is a great and detailed video for gimp. Thank you so much for showing this.

[@PlumbkinPie]

This was really, really helpful, thank you! I've been using GIMP very basically for years, I've learned so much from this video!

[@TritonFrontier17]

T Tiago Ramos 10 months ago @AstroFarsography Thanks for this video using Gimp. I'm new to Astrophotography and this is powerful for me. Im in light polluted chicagoland so anything on removing LP Gradients would be great. Im using a dual band LP filter but still fighting the LP Gradients. I see a Gradient Tool but cant figure out how to use it.

[@southernexposure123]

Thank you. I'm just getting started processing astrophotography. This video will help a lot.

[@gregwesson]

My god, this was amazing. You helped me take what I thought was an ok image to something I'm really proud of. Thanks SO MUCH for posting this, it's a game changer for me.

[@Muttboom27]

Wow! That was a lot to absorb but it will solve LOADS of problems for me. I only use Nebulosity, Canon Photo professional and GIMP. The more GIMP tutorials the better. Huge thanks!!!

[@carlhough2480]

Brilliant , this has helped me a lot , thank you. Yes another on the moon would be great.

[@ronaldleedham4719]

Man there is a lot going on! I was processing the veil neb while I followed along. It worked awesome but I need a lot more practice. Thanks much for your teachings!

[@TheGoKidd]

Thank you SO very much. I'm a total GIMP NewBoy and this really helps. Cheers.

[@starman6092]

Thanks for making this tutorial as there are not many out there for us wanting to learn GIMP with astrophotography. Could you make another with less steps, less layers and no keyboard shortcuts. Thanks.

[@grahamhgraham]

Superb explanation with clear instructions. Thank you very much indeed. You deserve a much bigger subscription/audience.

[@AstroFarsography]

Thanks Graham, glad to have helped! And thank you for those kind words, I seem to be picking up a bit more traction now and I'm awfully grateful about it 🙂

[@ulftornert2855]

An immensely helpful tutorial, very well presented. Thank you! (Now I'm curious of what I may come up with!) 👍

[@AdamClauson]

Thank you so much! This was really helpful in getting the galactic center of my milky way shot to really pop. Cheers!

[@patrickkavanagh4809]

This is the clearest and most detailed tutorial for processing of deepsky objects. However the pace could be slightly slower. I have to stop and go over again and again. Thanks!

[@harriheikkinen8493]

Thank you for a fantastic tutorial! Have been struggling with GIMP for ages, and learned tons of new tricks. I'm starting re-processing all old data now. Clear skies!

[@AstroFarsography]

You're welcome! Have fun editing your photos and be sure to show me them, I'd love to see them! What was your favourite trick you learnt? 😁

[@harriheikkinen8493]

@@AstroFarsography Sure I will, in due time 😀 You had tons of good tips however my favourite new trick was using the color select with feather, used to manually paint those nebulas which takes ages..

[@timschaeffer6353]

I usually don't comment on too much videos but your was so informative and straight to the point that I just wanna say thank you! Really helps me in processing :) Well earned sub! Also I'd love to see a tutorial on galaxies

[@iancoombes6120]

Wow, have only just down loaded Gimp..Have a lot to learn, but your video will help and encourage me through my journey. Thank you. Have also subscribed. Right, let's watch that again 😄

[@AndyinMokum]

This video is highly informative. Many thanks for taking the time to produce it. I'm a Linux user, Peppermint 10 Respin 64-bit. I'm a huge fan of Open source software. Naturally, GIMP is my goto image editor. I process my RAW files, with RawTherapee. I find both programmes, excellent alternatives to proprietary software.

[@dankahraman354]

Hi AstroFarsography. I downloaded Gimp a few weeks ago as I am finding Pixinsight lacking in some of the tools PS can accomplish and GIMP is the best alternative to Photoshop. Thanks for the effort and posting this tutorial.

[@AstroFarsography]

Hi Dan, you're most welcome! I'm glad you found this of use and I'm excited to see what you produce!

[@dankahraman354]

@@AstroFarsography I have done quite a bit mainly with the Altair 183c TEC and processing in PI. I have a lot of gear so playing with the different ones (esp. cameras) is an entirely different learning curve. The skies cleared so I am getting ready to image with a small camera Mallincamsky DS 287c. I did some lunar and Saturn photography in October. Results were quite good considering the poor seeing conditions ( Orion 7" f/15 Mak., Mallincamsky DS287c camera, made a short video then processing in Autostakkert and Registax. First foray into planetary/ lunar photography.

[@qonos68]

This tutorial is absolutely great. I'm watching it again and again while editing my captures and it is always a source of inspiration. Thank you.

[@pekwalker]

Great video! Thank you very much for sharing this. It is refreshing to see something other than Photoshop used. I have used Gimp for years and really like it. I wish more creators on here would do tutorials with it.

[@AstroFarsography]

Thanks! I mainly use Photoshop but I was asked to do GIMP and I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised at what it's capable of. I'll do more GIMP videos in the future for sure!

[@vineetagarwal208]

This video is amazing and very helpful. I was able to edit my best veil nebula picture using ur workflow. I do not have a photoshop license, so thank you for instructions for GIMP.

[@christopherdeaver5372]

Just found this channel. Brother your videos are great. Never seen one on gimp before. Love it.

[@TechRyse]

It was my first time using GIMP (editing my first Dee-sky image) and your video just made me feel like a professional. Thank you so much!

[@DavidDeLuge]

Excellent video! This has given me the confidence to go out and grab some images through my new scope.

[@jr10]

Great video. I just downloaded GIMP and wanted to follow your procedures with some practice on a photo I took of the Orion nebula. Unfortunately I ran into a road block right out of the gate, LOL. In the first step that you take you click on the menu option called colours in the list of options in the upper left hand corner of your main menu. My opening screen does not have any of those options above the tool menu in the left-hand column. Is there an option that I need to enable that I am missing? I would appreciate any help you can provide.

[@gwtomsic]

Outstanding! Best astro process for GIMP on the Internet. Full stop. Thanks.

[@foc2241]

Wow this is so cool, thanks for sharing this awesome Data!

[@Btech4401]

Great tutorial. Really well explained. You show how much you can do with GIMP. Thanks.

[@bryontrytten6709]

Thanks for the videos!!! They are so helpful. I recently bought a H-alpha filter for my dslr. There just isn’t a lot of information on the internet about processing and combining the H-alpha and RGB in gimp. I’ve seen some videos on how to do it in photoshop, but nothing for gimp. I would love to see a video on that. Any advice I would appreciate.

[@almercado1650]

Hi, and THANK you, excellent presentation, very thorough and your recaps are a nice touch since you even add commentaries to drill down a bit more! More tutorials - definitely - for nebulae with Ha, Oxygen regions for the colors would be great.....to see how you deal with the add'l adjustments that NGC 7000 didn't really offer. Hopeyou consider it!

[@stephenmorrell6669]

Thank you for this tutorial! You've taught me a lot in the space of

[@goonheadify]

You have helped me a lot. Thank you! Please do a video of a Galaxy in Gimp! Touching more on histogram work with colour levels would be great as well. Thanks man, def subscribed.

[@raulchirea1378]

This is gold. I'm using Linux so GIMP is the only option for me. Thanks a lot !

[@AstroFarsography]

You're welcome! Glad to have helped 🙂

[@tristanjillings5]

very nice video in a lot of other tutorials it doenst feel aimed at beginners this one definitly does thankyou very much

[@AstroCloudGenerator]

That was fantastic. You have a real talent for teaching. More Gimp tutorials would be a huge help. Do you have one to remove a gradient in the background caused by light pollution? I live close to London and I always get a gradient between the bright horizon and dark zenith.

[@richardwills6930]

Very helpful , just starting out in astrophotography . Just learning how to process pictures is a lesson , let alone anything else . Would like to see a planet process in gimp . 👍

[@timothysheridan5602]

I wanted to thank for your video on using gimp. I am very new to astrophotography

[@evanboyle2229]

Thank you so much for this! You've gained a subscriber immediately, this was exactly the type of video I was after 😁😁😁

[@AstroFarsography]

Thanks for the support Evan! I'm glad to have supplied what you were after :)

[@roymixon]

Great Tutorial! Thanks for sharing.

[@garethjones433]

Brilliant and clear tutorial. Keep up the great work.

[@homerjones9874]

Great discussion of GIMP workflow. I really needed this, especially the star mask. You've taught me a lot. I plan to give this a try on some of my astrophotos. Please keep the GIMP/Astro tutorials coming. Just subscribed.

[@robertocarloscaruso6840]

Excellent video ruzeen. Do you know astrophotography plugins for gimp?

[@AstroFarsography]

Thanks Roberto. No admittedly Gimp isn't my primary editor and I don't really use plugins for it either

[@mattsmith010171]

Thank you so much for your video. I use GIMP all the time and have been looking for a better work flow for editing my astrophotograhy photos. Still don't know a whole lot on doing a proper edit but this will help out a lot.

[@stefandietmann5120]

You really helped me to avoid buing into Adobe. I always didn't know hot to fether the colour selection. No I know. Thx a lot!

[@dankahraman354]

Thanks for the data & tutorial Ruzeen. I had an excellent tutorial in PS using M45 by A.V. Astronomy.

[@timmyers3428]

thanks for your hard work on this tutorial, I watched it and wrote down my own sequence from it. No matter how hard I try I can't seem to comprehend the star mask work you did. I understand what it is but could not reproduce what you did on my own. I need more detail what each step accomplishes so as to better understand both the how and the why. That being said some folks convinced me that I needed to use PI. that left me even more bewildered. I ended up purchasing a year of APP and while I love the APP up to the integration, the post processing is not so good. so I am back looking at Gimp. Any ideas where I can find additional tutorials on Gimp that apply to Astrophotography?

[@julienpicard8510]

thank you for this excellent tutorial, I now have the keys that I were missing to enhance my pictures. excellent job!!!

[@chucklangford8959]

I am new to Gimp and astrophotography and this is very helpful - thanks a lot

[@aprendendo.astronomia]

Hi friend. I’ll try some of these techniques. Thank you! But I’m having a lot of difficulties on treating my photos. I don’t know if I’m taking them the wrong way or don’t know how to edit them. I have one here that may be beautiful but can’t isolate the noise.

[@pascalsavard]

Hi ! Thank you for this video. May i know how you did this photo ? With and DSLR or an astronomical camera ?

[@dilipsharan8699]

Nice tutorial and walk through the features of GIMP which are useful for Astrophotography. One question though. Was there a bit of ringing of the stars? Or was that the outline mask? Also how do you save the final image?

[@AstroFarsography]

Thank you Dilip. The ringing in the stars would've been from my rough and not fine tuned selection process for making star masks. So if you take your time more with it and really get those selections nice and sorted then you'll be able to eliminate the ringing. I save the final image as a TIF to keep its quality, or as a GIMP working file. When I'm ready to export and share I just save it as a JPG.

[@dilipsharan8699]

@@AstroFarsography Thanks for putting together a GIMP workflow and demo. I have been thinking of using GIMP as I cannot justify using Paintshop, Etc. due to cost. I look forward to seeing your updated work and techniques.

[@astronomynotebook]

This is a very informative and easy to follow tutorial....would you please do one in Gimp for Galaxies and Star Clusters?❤️😊

[@enriqueboeneker]

Another great video! I have not used PS, but I’ve seen some videos of it in action. Gimp looks pretty much like PS, but with the advantage of being free. I’ll give it a shot. Looks like a good complement for Pixinsight.

[@robertocarloscaruso6840]

Learned a lot. Love your videos 🥇

[@prnzssLuna]

Excellent tutorial, thank you SO much! Did north america nebula yesterday, too, so this is a perfect totorial for me :3

[@whatnotzone6866]

Thank you very much for that tutorial. I found it informative

[@ginnybourne6374]

Thank you so much for this. I have been searching for a good AP editing tutorial using GIMP and masks specifically. You do it in a way that is super easy to follow. I am a complete newbie to AP generally so I am learning everything from using a camera to processing. . . and just in case it was easy I use linux so Siril seems to be my only option for the stacking bit, unless you know better? Once again thank you!

[@AstroFarsography]

That's not a problem, glad to have been of help! 🙂 And welcome to the hobby. It can be frustrating at times but it's the best thing out there 😁 and sorry, I don't know of any software for Linux 🙁

[@ginnybourne6374]

@@AstroFarsography Frustrating but very rewarding when it works out :-D Siril seems OK for the registration and stacking and I think I have that sorted now. It really is all about the processing you demonstrate in this vid. I have Darktable and something called PyAstro hooked up to GIMP as well. Darktable has some nice features for handling RAW images and allows me to open them with GIMP. PyAstro has some routines created specifically for processing too. So I think I have all the tools needed - it is just the firmware in my head that is old and slow lol

[@quartzimaging]

A superior tutorial! Thanks!

[@craigogier6487]

Thanks for this tutorial. I had no idea that Gimp was so powerful. I personally have always used PS but confess it's been a lot of trial and error. Thanks again for your videos 👍🏻

[@ahmedelmorsy8429]

Great tutorial, thank you so much for making the time for such great help.

[@sandrafoxley735]

Just subscribed - keep up the good work. Really pleased that someone is taking the time to help others obtain the best from Gimp as the only editor I have paid for is AstraImage (40 U.S. dollars roughly). PS, PI etc, might be alright but then you have to pay and to spend the time learning and I would much rather be outside at the telescope than sat in front of a computer. After being greatly disappointed with Windows 10 and the trouble it has caused me last year I have migrated to Linux on another machine so tutorials on Gimp are received with much gratitude. Something on Siril for stacking (free and on Linux) might be of benefit to people. Looking forward to catching up on your other vids now - thank you.

[@AstroFarsography]

Thanks for the support and the comment! Yes this hobby can be expensive enough before needing the processing software also! I have a few other GIMP tutorials in mind that I need to rehearse and record but I'll continue with them! As for the stacking program, j don't run Linux so unless it's available on Windows j won't be able to use it regrettably.

[@homerjones9874]

I would love and Andromeda tutorial to be one of your next. When I tried the workflow you've showed for the North American Nebula I immediately ran into a problem I don't know how to solve. In making the Star Mask, selecting stars by color also selects the core of the galaxy. When I try to unselect it, Gimp unselects all of the stars of that color selection. If I'm going to try to bring out the faint parts of the galaxy, it seems as if I should not include the core in the Star Mask, but I don't know how to do that.

[@AstroFarsography]

Hey Homer. I have some M31 data I can do this with. I intend on doing a galaxy tutorial so keep tuned. I'm in the middle of moving house currently but it's certainly on my radar to do!

[@homerjones9579]

@@AstroFarsography Fantastic. I hope the house move goes smoothly.

[@robertovolpini9359]

very very clear tutorial, thanks so much

[@black5f]

Fascinating and thanks. Being able to play along with the same sample is genius.

[@bigone520]

On my first levels adjustment I get a lot more data showing .. about 12mm on the levels colour adjustment and I haven't even touched it

[@AstroFarsography]

Hmm that's an interesting one. You might be able to skip doing the second levels adjustment then if it's showing enough data

[@bigone520]

On your vid at 1.10 you can only see a bit of data there .. I see about 12mm

[@AstroFarsography]

@@bigone520 that's interesting then. I purposely had mine low as I know the monitor I use is quite dark. But still that you can see much more data is interesting!

[@bigone520]

I see data from the beginning of the letter E on levels on the adjustment level screen..

[@AstroFarsography]

@@bigone520 not sure then. If it's untouched I don't know why you'll be seeing the data spike that far up the slider 🤔

[@nikulsuthar]

A million thanks for posting this video... I'm a beginner astrophotographer and not graphics processor. For the last 3 years I have been trying hard to process my poor quality captures with GIMP but couldn't get it to work. I'll not be able to get PixInsight for the next couple of years. I'm not finding any good tutorials online to process astroimages with GIMP. I request you to please post more videos of processing astroimages with GIMP. Also if you know any tutorials online to process astroimages then please let me know. Once again many thanks for the video... :)

[@AstroFarsography]

You are most welcome! When I had just begun processing was the hardest part to be sure! I do intend on making more tutorials in the future for GIMP and Photoshop. I couldn't find too many online tutorials either when I began. Hope to see some of your work from following my tutorial! 😁

[@TiagoRamos79]

Hello Ruzeen. This video is my base in post-processing, in which appreciate. Can you make a video with the Gimp Astronomy Plugins? Thanks

[@nickambrose8135]

Fantastic. This is super super helpful. Thank you

[@robferreira6500]

Great video and very helpful. I've been watching it several times and soaking it all in. Now I have to finally apply this to processing my images.

[@brandonbrooks2845]

Great to see a tutorial that's not Photoshop. Thanks!!!!

[@Resorob]

Thank you for uploading this awesome tutorial and take newbies like me into consideration and include a test file. I liked your video and subscribed to your channel.