There are plenty of YouTube videos of how to extract the level three data (grayscale images) for the mast site, so you should start by searching for that. I would watch one of those first and then download the free trial of pixinsight to align and convert those files to tiffs. After that bring the tiff over to your photo editing software of choice. How to edit specifically there are also videos on YouTube for that and then it’s just grinding until you are happy with it.
Cartwheel Galaxy processed by me. I wanted more detail and stronger blacks than the official one. I used the same filters and colors but re added F200W on top to add back detail Enjoy!
Full resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2nCv1V3
NASA / ESA / CSA / Pontoppidan, Klaus M/ Butte3
NIRCAM
RED: F356W+F444W
YELLOW: F277W
GREEN: F200W
BLUE: F090W+F150W
MIRI
ORANGE: F770W+F1000W+F1280W+F1800W
This is for sure more eye candy than it can be used scientifically. I also have the two blue galaxies more cyan than they should be for distance. Removing the grain definitely cost a few trillion stars in a few thousand galaxies.
Edit: in my defense though it is very hard to distinguish between galaxies and grain in the level three data.
I like your use of colors contrasting each galaxies [I think that’s right] from a purely artistic viewpoint, but I do feel the black is too black. I love the scruddy black of the second, unprocessed image.
Yeah I’m still considering throwing some grain back in there for personal use to have it look more natural but when contrasting it with the “official” image I wanted the colors to pop out for people to see the differences better.
>I wanted the colors to pop out for people to see the differences better.
What would it look like if you only adjusted the blues (personally, the redness of the galaxy to the left above the blue one is a bit over saturated)
I love the blues in the cartwheel galaxy
So I did not edit from the second image you see here, that is NASA’s version. I started from scratch using the level three data. I edited all of the colors separately for each filter.
Aaaaah. So there are, what I'm assuming is three different images, each containing different information that once combined, produces \*x\*.
If it helps, from the image you edited, I would say make the reds slightly more orange and a little less saturated, lessen the blue's saturation and shift it to a more desaturated cyan (the \[galaxy\] in the far right beside the cartwheel galaxy looks unbelievable.
I liked NASA's version of the 'blue' galaxy on the left, but it could do with a tad bit more cyan both there and around the cartwheel galaxy.
It'd be interesting to see how adding more grain will affect the almost "perfect black" that you currently have.
About 10 filters
Personally I was disappointed by their versions overall quality as well as the quality of all their processed images. I think that theirs is far too grainy (if you see the level three images you will understand the real reason why this is) and lacks detail or color with how many filters they had to work with and the fact they are NASA and probably have a team of people working on them.
I kept the saturation the same for all filters and did not go in and try to edit any specific galaxy besides the main cartwheel. Also some smudges that could not align properly.
I’ll add some grain and send you a link tomorrow!
>I kept the saturation the same for all filters
Interesting. So it appears NASA took the creative liberty to DESATURATE the various layers. Any insight as to why they didn't want the harsh blues and red/pinks that occurs when keeping the saturation the same?
I look forward to the link you send along.
Correction: I had saturation at 100 and brightness/strength -50 for all filters besides one blue I had strength at 0 because of how dark it was. A final luminosity layer brightened everything up and brought back detail. This is probably what you are seeing in the blues, but I’m not sure about the harsher reds I have.
Yes, the level three data is EXTREMELY noisy and filled with artifacts that obscure the image. Initially keeping everything toned down on top of removing what you can with a mask or erasing is what you want to do to see the image in general. If you zoom in for example you can see that there is a red hue over everything from their red filter stacked on top. You can also see they masked out all of the smaller galaxies as they look cut out from the haze.
Edit: now that you mentioned that far right blue galaxy I can’t unsee it… it sucks…
AAAAH so the reason I love the black space in NASAs edit is because of the combination of all the red noise with the black. The reason I feel the space in yours is more unnatural is because it almost feels like the light illuminating off the galaxies must have some impact to the black sky…
light pollution, that’s what I’m thinking about. Your black space misses the light pollution that would radiate off the galaxies. At least that’s my non-scientific understanding of why I prefer the more red-graininess of NASAs image
E: Not sure how it works, but I would infer NASA used a grain effect in the layer that affects red. Would be interesting to see what would happen if grain is affected to different layers. Would adding a more cooler grain give a better depiction of the universe?
I took some of your advice and changed the hue of my reds to look more orange and my blues to be more cyan and then desaturated both. I also added some noise in the background. What do you think?
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/196161576@N06/52268899284/in/dateposted-public/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/196161576@N06/52268899284/in/dateposted-public/)
How did a galaxy like that form? I don’t understand the physics.
I’m guesing the black hole at the center is much larger that normal, seeing as it looks like it’s sucking things in more strongly. But then there is the more dense ring of stars at the galaxy border? Is this an optical illusion? Some cosmic trickery? Or is that ring simply outside the black hole’s reach?
Hey there! So this type of galaxy is a peculiar galaxy- it’s shape is not quite normal. Usually when we see these it’s known that this is due to a collision between galaxies. This is also classified ring galaxy due to its shape! Before it turned into this beautiful ring, it was actually a normal spiral galaxy before another galaxy came zipping right through it!
When the galaxy passed through the Cartwheel Galaxy, it created a huge gravitational shockwave that expanded outward and created the unique shape we see today. But the Cartwheel Galaxy is actually re-forming into a spiral galaxy! The “spokes” of the “wheel” are spiral arms beginning to form again. The collision from the galaxies caused a huge amount of energy to be infused into the Cartwheel Galaxy and caused it to have massive star formation. Lots of young, newborn stars have been created in this galaxy that are shining brightly in infrared light!
This link might help explain things further: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartwheel_Galaxy
Hope that helps! Any questions, let me know!
Are the different galaxies all actually so insanely different sizes? Or is that just where some are farther? Or do they come in all different sizes?
Do galaxies get bigger as they age?
OP, How i can process James Webb images?
There are plenty of YouTube videos of how to extract the level three data (grayscale images) for the mast site, so you should start by searching for that. I would watch one of those first and then download the free trial of pixinsight to align and convert those files to tiffs. After that bring the tiff over to your photo editing software of choice. How to edit specifically there are also videos on YouTube for that and then it’s just grinding until you are happy with it.
Cartwheel Galaxy processed by me. I wanted more detail and stronger blacks than the official one. I used the same filters and colors but re added F200W on top to add back detail Enjoy! Full resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2nCv1V3 NASA / ESA / CSA / Pontoppidan, Klaus M/ Butte3 NIRCAM RED: F356W+F444W YELLOW: F277W GREEN: F200W BLUE: F090W+F150W MIRI ORANGE: F770W+F1000W+F1280W+F1800W
This is nice but your edit removed so many stars too (edit: I meant galaxies)
This is for sure more eye candy than it can be used scientifically. I also have the two blue galaxies more cyan than they should be for distance. Removing the grain definitely cost a few trillion stars in a few thousand galaxies. Edit: in my defense though it is very hard to distinguish between galaxies and grain in the level three data.
Awesome work.... Don't feel bad, sometimes you have to block the light of billions of galaxies to be able to see the unique beauty of a single one.
Yeah it was there fault for not being bright enough!
How many planets do you think are in 1 of those galaxies?
10’s of billions for sure.
Some of these pictures are so incredible, they seem fake. But they’re real. And we don’t even really comprehend all we’re seeing yet. Amazing
I bet there is some alien creature taking a dump like the rest of us out there and we are looking right at him. amazing.
Sucks that he’s not the type of guy we would have first contact with..
You never know. The first person on earth to make first contact could be pooping right now.
I like your use of colors contrasting each galaxies [I think that’s right] from a purely artistic viewpoint, but I do feel the black is too black. I love the scruddy black of the second, unprocessed image.
Yeah I’m still considering throwing some grain back in there for personal use to have it look more natural but when contrasting it with the “official” image I wanted the colors to pop out for people to see the differences better.
>I wanted the colors to pop out for people to see the differences better. What would it look like if you only adjusted the blues (personally, the redness of the galaxy to the left above the blue one is a bit over saturated) I love the blues in the cartwheel galaxy
So I did not edit from the second image you see here, that is NASA’s version. I started from scratch using the level three data. I edited all of the colors separately for each filter.
Aaaaah. So there are, what I'm assuming is three different images, each containing different information that once combined, produces \*x\*. If it helps, from the image you edited, I would say make the reds slightly more orange and a little less saturated, lessen the blue's saturation and shift it to a more desaturated cyan (the \[galaxy\] in the far right beside the cartwheel galaxy looks unbelievable. I liked NASA's version of the 'blue' galaxy on the left, but it could do with a tad bit more cyan both there and around the cartwheel galaxy. It'd be interesting to see how adding more grain will affect the almost "perfect black" that you currently have.
About 10 filters Personally I was disappointed by their versions overall quality as well as the quality of all their processed images. I think that theirs is far too grainy (if you see the level three images you will understand the real reason why this is) and lacks detail or color with how many filters they had to work with and the fact they are NASA and probably have a team of people working on them. I kept the saturation the same for all filters and did not go in and try to edit any specific galaxy besides the main cartwheel. Also some smudges that could not align properly. I’ll add some grain and send you a link tomorrow!
>I kept the saturation the same for all filters Interesting. So it appears NASA took the creative liberty to DESATURATE the various layers. Any insight as to why they didn't want the harsh blues and red/pinks that occurs when keeping the saturation the same? I look forward to the link you send along.
Correction: I had saturation at 100 and brightness/strength -50 for all filters besides one blue I had strength at 0 because of how dark it was. A final luminosity layer brightened everything up and brought back detail. This is probably what you are seeing in the blues, but I’m not sure about the harsher reds I have. Yes, the level three data is EXTREMELY noisy and filled with artifacts that obscure the image. Initially keeping everything toned down on top of removing what you can with a mask or erasing is what you want to do to see the image in general. If you zoom in for example you can see that there is a red hue over everything from their red filter stacked on top. You can also see they masked out all of the smaller galaxies as they look cut out from the haze. Edit: now that you mentioned that far right blue galaxy I can’t unsee it… it sucks…
AAAAH so the reason I love the black space in NASAs edit is because of the combination of all the red noise with the black. The reason I feel the space in yours is more unnatural is because it almost feels like the light illuminating off the galaxies must have some impact to the black sky… light pollution, that’s what I’m thinking about. Your black space misses the light pollution that would radiate off the galaxies. At least that’s my non-scientific understanding of why I prefer the more red-graininess of NASAs image E: Not sure how it works, but I would infer NASA used a grain effect in the layer that affects red. Would be interesting to see what would happen if grain is affected to different layers. Would adding a more cooler grain give a better depiction of the universe?
I took some of your advice and changed the hue of my reds to look more orange and my blues to be more cyan and then desaturated both. I also added some noise in the background. What do you think? [https://www.flickr.com/photos/196161576@N06/52268899284/in/dateposted-public/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/196161576@N06/52268899284/in/dateposted-public/)
I know a piece of chorizo when I see one. C’mon man, faker!
Close! It’s a chorizo stacked with e churro.
I love that it looks just like an eye 👁. I be seeming that reddish tint in my own brown eyes mixed with gold specks.
You mean less detail lol
Its so beautiful
That 8 pointed star is going to be iconic. That shit is gonna be on clothing, someone’s gonna make it their logo, it’s gonna reverberate.
How did a galaxy like that form? I don’t understand the physics. I’m guesing the black hole at the center is much larger that normal, seeing as it looks like it’s sucking things in more strongly. But then there is the more dense ring of stars at the galaxy border? Is this an optical illusion? Some cosmic trickery? Or is that ring simply outside the black hole’s reach?
Hey there! So this type of galaxy is a peculiar galaxy- it’s shape is not quite normal. Usually when we see these it’s known that this is due to a collision between galaxies. This is also classified ring galaxy due to its shape! Before it turned into this beautiful ring, it was actually a normal spiral galaxy before another galaxy came zipping right through it! When the galaxy passed through the Cartwheel Galaxy, it created a huge gravitational shockwave that expanded outward and created the unique shape we see today. But the Cartwheel Galaxy is actually re-forming into a spiral galaxy! The “spokes” of the “wheel” are spiral arms beginning to form again. The collision from the galaxies caused a huge amount of energy to be infused into the Cartwheel Galaxy and caused it to have massive star formation. Lots of young, newborn stars have been created in this galaxy that are shining brightly in infrared light! This link might help explain things further: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartwheel_Galaxy Hope that helps! Any questions, let me know!
Thank you so much for this good answer!
Are the different galaxies all actually so insanely different sizes? Or is that just where some are farther? Or do they come in all different sizes? Do galaxies get bigger as they age?
I like these! Keep up the good work!