GIMP Astrophotography Processing Tutorial - Beginner Friendly!

It's amazing what you can do with just the basics! This video contains just the bare bones on which to build on, and is highly suitable for people starting out with DSO image processing.
Here is a Drop Box link with the data if anyone wants to practice by following along: www.dropbox.com/sh/bw9e9m0ftp...
You can download GIMP for free here: (I'm not affiliated with GIMP in anyway, I'm just a keen user)
www.gimp.org/downloads/
The data was collected using a StellaMira 90mm EDT refractor and Fuji XT1 mirrorless camera. 40x120second exposures. Just light frames and no filters.
StellaMira 90mm EDT Refractor: (affiliate links)
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StellaMira 2" 0.8x Reducer/Flattener
www.firstlightoptics.com/stel...
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A huge thank you if you choose to help out!!
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[@AstroLaVista]

I'll just discreetly leave this First Light Optics affiliate link here www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes.html

[@mediocrefunkybeat]

Very discreet.

[@AstroLaVista]

@@mediocrefunkybeat Shh! don't tell anyone :D

[@M6RDPadam]

Thoroughly enjoyed watching your video. I've always found GIMP really intimidating, but it just shows that when you watch a good tutorial, patiently explained, like your own, your confidence about approaching the software improves. I'm looking forward to giving it a try now. Great presentation. Thanks for posting. Adam

[@AstroLaVista]

I think I've enjoyed your comment as much as you enjoyed the video, cheers Adam! very glad this was useful to you :)

[@lol_who984]

You really deserve so many more views and subscribers, your content is great and very informative, keep going at it! :)

[@AstroLaVista]

Thank you so much!

[@jamescollins7216]

This will provide a great start to many beginners like myself. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! 🙂

[@AstroLaVista]

Hi James, I'm glad it was helpful, thank you for the nice comment :)

[@huguesdebeyser332]

Thanks, I started in 2021 with astrophotography. I mainly focus on single exposure Milky Way shots, no tracking, for now! Your tutorial is really helpful, simple and well paced.I abandoned GIMP as it was really overwhelming and lots of tutorials were too fast...I use Darktable, as it is also free, am happy but find it limited. You got me back to GIMP today, and it starts to make sense! Would love to see one on how to specificly improve, reduce noise, change color in specific areas of a picture, in GIMP. I believe it involves using masks, drawing masks? Thanks again! Hugues, QLD-Australia

[@AstroLaVista]

Hey Hugues, that's great to hear, I'm glad the video helped you get going with GIMP :) It's a really handy free programme I feel (just looking at Pixinsight scares me!) I too struggle when tutorials move too quickly, it takes a bit of time for the info to sink in. I try and pitch tutorials how I would want to watch them :) I'm too simple for layers but get round this by using the lasso tool to drawer round the region of interest e.g. galaxy, then I can adjust the colour etc just for that region. I will make a shorts video for this as it will only take 60 seconds to demo, Cheers :)

[@patrickshea7073]

Great video to learn the basics. It cleaned up my pictures in less than 30 minutes. Thanks.

[@AstroLaVista]

Great to hear! Glad it helped :)

[@woody5109]

Good job, this is my first day using gimp so this is perfect, thank you

[@oasacademy4953]

Thanks for doing this, we are running some tutorials on image processing with GIMP, so its good to see something we can refer to. Thanks again

[@thecelticcorrespondent9257]

Really helpful starter - many thanks! With your help, I managed to process a pleasing - if far from perfect - image of the Iris Nebula!

[@shree2710]

This video has been immensely helpful since I didn't wanted to get photoshop just yet!

[@AstroLaVista]

I'm pleased to hear this, thanks for watching :)

[@mtippett80]

Great video ... as both new to astrophotography and image editing this was really helpful as you explained why you were doing things!!

[@AstroLaVista]

Glad it was helpful! I think it helps with remembering if you know why you're doing things :)

[@thefourgrapples2810]

Thank you Chris, very well done and appreciated.

[@AstroLaVista]

My pleasure Kevin, cheers :)

[@Eginger2525]

Thank you for the wonderful video. I learned a lot from this.

[@AstroLaVista]

You're welcome :)

[@peteclements6427]

thank you for this, good presentation, very informative and useful for some one like me getting back into stacking and processing after a long break

[@AstroLaVista]

Glad you found it useful Pete! Hopefully it's like riding a bike and you'll fall back into it no problem :) Oh and I discovered why my core was blown out, it's because I stretched the curve too far to the right about 2/3rds along the histogram. I found it's better for galaxy cores if you stretch the histogram from around the mid point instead :)

[@peteclements6427]

@@AstroLaVista thanks for kind words and updated info on the histogram, I'll keep it mind when I'm editing with your video playing on my second screen

[@ridleyroid9060]

I've only recently gotten into some AP and am only using my phone and dob for now, dreadfully poor equipment but I'm happy to just learn, thank you for this tutorial!

[@AstroLaVista]

Thanks for watching, phones are getting pretty good now days so I'm sure you'll have fun before upgrading.

[@smalloptics753]

Hey Chris. I've had Gimp for ages and never knew it had a histogram.. Oh well you live and learn.. I suppose it shows just how far my knowledge of photography and editors goes lol.. So, this is brill :D . Thanks for sharing pal, great video :)

[@AstroLaVista]

Cheers Jason, yes it has a few histograms dotted about :) I enjoyed your video by the way, I kind of felt bad laughing because I know people actually buy these for their kids Xmas present etc, but the names! lol

[@jonathanr2830]

Excellent! Thank you.

[@AstroLaVista]

You're welcome! Cheers :)

[@Mobius3c273]

Chris, thanks for your Gimp tutorial, really enjoyed that. I learned a few tricks today thanks. I forgot about the ability to use that vignetting tool in photo edit. Hopefully now I have a good technique of doing flats I should not need to use it. I used my Batinov mask as a template and cut out some translucent white plasic which I will hang over my scope during the day. You sound a lovely guy cheers ;-) clear skies.

[@AstroLaVista]

Cheers Robbie, glad you liked it :) Nice DIY flat panel idea there too, I take it the idea is to aid with sky flats and diffuse the light to even things out? I think astronomy brings me out of my shell a bit lol Thanks for watching and for the nice comment!

[@Mobius3c273]

@@AstroLaVista Yes that is correct I will be doing mainly sky flats, on both my Stellamira 90 EDT and 9.25inch Celestron. I tried the shirt idea but I do not like the potential risk of increasing the number of dust particles. I had purchased a large light panel for my 9.25inch but it really wasn't practical for me to use because of size and weight and intensity of light. Even after modifying the light it was awkward, so I decided to remove the large diffuser panel and cut it down to size for smaller managable diffuser panels for each telescope, hanging them on like the the Batinov masks. I'm pleased with the results so far. Clear skies :-)

[@thecelticcorrespondent9257]

Very helpful video - and short!! Many thanks. I hope you don't mind a question. When I try to expand the Channel (in GIMP) from 'Value' , the Red, Green and Blue are greyed out. I know the stacked image that I have (from Telescope Live via Siril) includes several of each of these colours in the 16 frames, but I can only seem to get B&W out? Can you hazard a guess as to what I'm doing wrong? Should I have stacked each colour separately? If so, how do I create a composite / stacked image to work on? You will quickly realise I am pretty new to all this stuff!

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

Great video Chris I've tried Gimp on numerous occasions but never really got on with it might give it another go sometime though.

[@AstroLaVista]

Thanks! Which software do you tend to use?

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

@@AstroLaVista I use an older version of Photoshop CS5 as I refuse to be tied into a subscription, I did buy Affinity when it were on sale but I've yet to try anything in that as yet lol. Just thought I'd add I always use DSS for stacking have done since doing deep sky imaging. I've dabbled in Pixinsight but I find that to be a bit of a nightmare to use but then I guess there's always Siril as that seems to be a stripped down version of pi. Sorry for the ramblings lol.

[@AstroLaVista]

@@dumpydalekobservatory Someone on the forum recommended using SIRIL between the DSS and GIMP, I might need to check that one out. I hear you with regards to subscriptions, apart from all the usual family subscriptions to TV and Xbox etc, I have two subscriptions for making YT videos - Canva for thumbnails, Story Blocks for music and video clips. Oh then there's Movavi video editor updates etc, It all adds up, so I'm glad GIMP is free :)

[@marior71]

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooww Qué locuraa!! He procesado una foto mía y buahh super bien jaja. Thank you! Like

[@vijaygopal101]

Great video. Would be even more great if you could put a link in the description for the tiff file, so that we can follow along with the video. Its sad that there aren't too many Gimp tutorials, being as its free and all. Keep up the good work!

[@AstroLaVista]

Many thanks Vijay! There is a Drop Box link to the tiffs in the comments, but I'll copy and paste it into the description also, cheers!

[@AstroLaVista]

I've just added a Master stacked Tiff to drop box so you should be able to open it straight up in GIMP :)

[@vijaygopal101]

@@AstroLaVista Thanks a lot!

[@AstroLaVista]

@@vijaygopal101 No worries :)

[@garytaylor5818]

I'm a beginnner and found this to be way beyond my level. Lots of work to do if I'm going to understand what your adjustments are doing and why.

[@AstroLaVista]

Hi Gary, sorry to hear that. I partly feel that way when looking at some of the advanced processing people are doing in Pixinsight. I think it's a case of easy when you know how. In this GIMP tutorial I've tried to just keep to working on a single layer and introduce two of the main concepts. Levels and Curves - adjusting the levels you are just changing the colour of different parts of the image to taste, and curves you are stretching out detail at different brightness levels. The histogram goes from black on the left hand side to white on the right hand side, so if you stretch the left part of the histogram you are pulling out detail in the shadows, and if you stretch the histogram on the right you are pulling up detail in the bright portions of the image. E.g. in this tutorial I stretched the histogram a bit too far to the right blowing out the bright galaxy core. In hindsight I would have pulled up the histogram slightly further to the left. I hope that makes sense? I'm just wondering if I over explained in this video and made it look more difficult than it actually is because we are basically just moving sliders until the image looks how we want it. We tend to also make small adjustments over and over which might make it look more complicated then it really is? I might see if I can make another tutorial with less steps.

[@violentsun]

Fantastic Thanks buddy

[@AstroLaVista]

You're welcome.

[@tomreid7]

Thanks , enjoyable and informative, How did the core get to be blown out, and what can be done to avoid it happening?

[@AstroLaVista]

Hey Tom, glad you enjoyed it! When you image local galaxies like Andromeda and the Triangulum, also objects like the Great Orion Nebula the core is always much brighter than the surroundings. A lot of people would take short exposures for the core and longer exposures for the faint regions then layer them because if you just take a long exposure for everything the faint regions become visible but the already bright regions can get blown out. Now, I did manage to balance the bright core with the faint galaxy arms on one of my attempts, and I think the critical step is the S-Curve's after the levels. I think you really need to nail the exact point you drag the curve up and down to form the S shape to help balance things out. I think it's quite common to see pics with the core blow out just that on this rendition it looked a bit ugly. I probably could have improved it by using the lasso tool to isolate that regions and drag down the brightness and contrast a bit to make it less in your face. A more advanced layer masking video might be needed. Thanks for watching, much appreciated!

[@rallemikken6936]

@@AstroLaVista Colors -> Shadows and highlights Drag highlights down, repeat 3-4 times.

[@ronmac1832]

Very useful tutorial! Is the vignetting just because we use square sensors in round telescopes? I seem to have lots of it!

[@AstroLaVista]

Partly yes! If the area of full illumination, aka the image circle, is smaller than your rectangle sensor, then you will see vignette. Generally speaking the larger the sensor, the more vignetting you will see. At a price you can get optics with a large image circle suitable for full frame cameras. However, folks get around vignetting by taking flat frames, then subtracting these from the light frames. There are various factors that go into the size of the image circle - e.g. light entering the centre of a lens will hit the sensor more directly then light entering through the edge of a lens.

[@JH_Phillips]

Thanks for the video! Do you prefer GIMP to Photoshop or other programs?

[@AstroLaVista]

Hi Jess, back in the early days of GIMP I preferred to use a free version of Photoshop called CS6. However GIMP has improved a lot since it's 8 bit days so it's all I use now. Cheers for watching.

[@andrewwareing7291]

Is there a way to apply colour to a monochrome image? I have a pile of images through different filters on M108 that I want to turn into a colour image. I also want to try it with planet images later this fall.

[@AstroLaVista]

Hi Andrew, are you using a mono camera with RGB filters? I know you can blend different layers together for the different colour channels but I only use colour cameras so it's not something I do, sorry.

[@shinyy187]

I’ve been using gimp for a while now but I feel like there’s more I can do with my image on gimp. For instance, I use a redcat 51 with a zwo 533mc so my stars are kind of bloated. I’m sure there’s a way to decrease star size on gimp but I’m not sure how. I have photoshop but it’s way too complicated to use

[@charlesburks3988]

Great video!! I have never owned a computer befor very new to it ALL Can be a bit over whelming. I HAD one great stack of Orion but some how lost/deleted it. Lol all part of the fun.

[@AstroLaVista]

It's a steep learning curve if you've never owned a computer before but keep at it and I'm sure you'll be fine :)

[@charlesburks3988]

@@AstroLaVista always liked looking up. Had small scopes over many yrs. Now 48 yr I Finally gave in got a 10in dob. Spent some time learning the sky and now I'm really hooked. Clear skys

[@avt_astro206]

Fantastic Tutorial Chris!! Hear me out :) Gimp user Hear, I recently Processed my orion nebula Image! Did The Same (pull out Levels and Noise Reduction! HDR for The Core! Nice work mate. The Triangulums H2 Regions Popped Out Well :);

[@AstroLaVista]

Hey Avanteesh! thanks so much, was that the image on Insta? The Fuji XT1 I use is crazy good for picking out the Ha considering it's an off the shelve camera, cheers!

[@avt_astro206]

@@AstroLaVistaoh yes! The Image which You have seen on insta :).

[@2heads142]

hi what camera are you using i have just started got a canon 1000d and a dob 8 in skywatcher

[@AstroLaVista]

Hi, I'm using a Fuji XT1 which has great hydrogen alpha sensitivity but it's a pain for stacking images in Deep Sky Stacker. The 1000D is a good cam, it has the all important live view to help with focus. Enjoy :)

[@2heads142]

@@AstroLaVista thanks love love your vids

[@AstroLaVista]

@@2heads142 Cheers!

[@njdoughboy]

I like you. So I watch you. Cheers.

[@AstroLaVista]

Cheers fella, much appreciated!

[@FrankWhite-yg8ds]

Hello is it Chris? I am to old for quick videos. could you kindly do a pdf file of your video. Then I can look at a print at leisure Thank you Frank

[@tullyfisher]

Hey Chris, that's a great tutorial. Thank you for sharing your process. I am really not an expert when it comes to image processing (yet) but maybe I can still give you a tip for the galaxy's core.. ;) .. You can put your initial image of the galaxy (without the "burned" core) as background layer (layer-transparency-add alpha channel) and just erase your foreground image to let the initial core shine trough... in principal according to this tutorial kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWGuiXSeh9Z6mNU . - You just don't make it black and white...and you use two different pics for your layers... Because I had the same problem when processing the HDR target orion nebula (core) in the past. I hope this could also help you. - Thank you and my best regards. And Happy New Year. 😊

[@AstroLaVista]

Thanks Tully, much appreciated! :) Historically I've not had much luck with layers so I tend to keep things very basic, however I know I need to give them another go at some point so thanks very much for giving me the nudge I probably need :D Happy new year to you too! I hope you have a great 2022 : )

[@StagnantMizu]

my histogram is just against the left wall

[@fuffi3076]

Why is your Galaxy Core looking a little bit weird?

[@AstroLaVista]

I'm pretty sure I talk about the core in the video, right?

[@fuffi3076]

@@AstroLaVista Maybe overexposed?

[@AstroLaVista]

Here is the video for Deep Sky Stacker which is the step before this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mWS6aYCQj8etpNk

[@AstroLaVista]

Here is a Drop Box link with the data if anyone wants to practice by following along. I've included the raw files plus the Master Stacked Tiff: www.dropbox.com/sh/bw9e9m0ftpohpqo/AAB1WSyarN6QzuA6-_ZD5EONa?dl=0

[@AmatureAstronomer]

Just took my first picture of the sky last night. M42 in Orion. Went through deep sky stacker and then went into Gimp. Followed along with you in an effort to learn the software. When I finished with Gimp the photo looks worse than when I started. More of an art, than a science. But, I learned how to misuse Gimp. Thanks!

[@AstroLaVista]

Andromeda has a very bright core, you can even see it naked eye from dark skies, so make your histogram stretches more to the left of the curve where the darker data is. The level and curve steps should serve you well, but pay attention to how the object responds to the changes you make and will quickly learn the software.

[@j.sokalski9770]

The screen and tools are not the same as the one you are showing. You don't explain how to setup the tool selection area.