Imaging Technique

Tóofs
New software
makes it easier than
ever to create
stunning total
eclipse ¡mages.
Chas
Photographing solar eclipses is one of the most challeng-
ing forms of astro imaging. It requires a great amount of
advanced planning, from organizing the equipment you
tow along on your voyage towards totality, to recording
a series of exposures that capture the massive range of
brightness displayed by the Sun's ethereal corona. The
age of digital photography has added a new twist; some
photographers spend days or weeks processing their expo-
sures to create the breathtaking results that have emerged
from recent eclipses.
But now there's an even newer twist; modern software
developed for conventional photography makes combining
your bracketed eclipse exposures an automatic process. While the process is ideally suited to modern digital expo
Photomatix Pro 3 (www.hdrsoft.com) is a $99 program sures, it works just as well with older film images that
designed to combine a series of frames progressively under- have been scanned.
and over-exposed to reveal details beyond the range of
brightness captured by a single exposure. This technique, Automatic HDR
known as high-dynamic-range (HDR) photography, has Photomatix Pro 3 is available for download from the Inter-
become popular with landscape and nature photographers. net, and a free demo version is fully functional, though
But it also lends itself perfectly to eclipse photography. images created with it are watermarked. Once you install
I've developed a workflow between Photomatix Pro 3 the program, you simply start the process by clicking
and Adobe Photoshop that eliminates much of the tedious the Generate HDR image in the Workflow Shortcuts tool
steps previously needed to create an HDR eclipse image. palette. A new window opens, and pressing the browse

64 June 2oog SKY & TELESCOPE


button allows you to search for your images. The program
supports JPEG. TIFF. PSD. BMP, and all major digital-
camera manufacturers RAW formats.
Once you've selected your series of images, you'll be
offered a few choices for aligning them and mapping
the tonal curve of the final composition. If your images
weren't aligned during capture (or when you scanned
them), try using the "correcting horizontal and verti-
cal shifts" option. Ideally you want a series of exposures
made in rapid succession, so the Moon's movement
relative to the Sun's corona isn't significant between the
Solar eclipse photographers now have a fast and easy way to create jaw-dropping
portraits of the best moments of totality. Photomatix Pro 3 (www.hdrsoft.com} for
Mac and PC operating systems allows you to automatically register and combine a
bracketed series of photographs, revealing everything — from the outer corona to
faint earthshine on the lunar surface — in a single image. Unless otherwise noted,
the eclipse images in this article were captured in China last August by S&T's
senior editor Dennis di Cicco and processed by the author.
start and end of your series. 1 suggest using the default
"tone mapping" option at the bottom of the palette, which
allows the program to automatically calculate the expo-
sure ratios of each image.
If your series has multiple images made with the same
exposure, Photomatix Pro 3 will ask you to verify this
before combining. If you're using scanned images, you'll
have to assign each image its own exposure increment.
The program offers several automatic options that tend to
work well, but be sure to verify your photos are in order
before proceeding. Once everything is ready, you just click
SkyandTelescope.com June 200C) 65
 Imaging Technique
Developed for conventional photographers, Photomatix Pro 3 lets
you combine multiple images made with different exposures to
create a single view showing detail across a larger range of bright-
ness than can be captured in any single exposure. This example
uses multiple shots ranging from !4<w to '/a second.
66 June200g S K Y &. T E L E S C O P E
OK to combine the frames into one raw HDR image.
Once combined, your image will display on the
monitor appearing blown out. Don't worry; this is your
unprocessed HDR result. A small HDR Viewer window
also opens that will show the detail in any part of the
image that you move your cursor over. At this point, it's
a good idea to save the raw image so that you can reload
it and try different tone mapping without having to start
from scratch.
The real strength of Photomatix Pro 3 becomes appare^nt
when you click the Tone Mapping button. This function
allows you to compress the dynamic range of your com-
bined image and reveal details across a huge range of coro-
nal brightnesses in a single image. I have experimented
with all the options available with tone mapping, and what
follows is a description of the settings I find most useful
tor creating a great eclipse image. Feel free to experiment,
as my tastes in photography will likely differ from yours. |
I start by selecting the Details Enhancer tab, setting I
the Strength slider to 100 and the Color Saturation slider
to about 50. Next, choose the right-most button under tHe
Light Smoothing options (the other buttons tend to create
strange vignetting effects).
I usually set the Luminosity option between 0 and 2.
ULTIMATE ECLIPSE DETAIL
While just about any eclipse
photographer adept at digital
processing can create beautiful pictures
with the software described in the
accompanying article, enterprising
individuals such as Miloslav
Druckmüller and his daughter Hana
Druckmüllerová have developed custom
progiams for combining and enhancing
exposures. They created the image here
using data recorded by Constantinos
Emmanouilidis while on an eclipse
expedition to Novosibitsk, Russia,
last August. It combines 31 exposures
recorded through aTakahashi FS60C
refractor with a Canon 35OD camera set
to ISO 100. Exposures ranged from !/» to
6 seconds. Each image v^as flat-field and
dark-frame calibrated before the final
composition was generated.
 TONE-MAPPING

Changes here will be reflected in a handy histogram dis-

played in the window below the Luminosity setting and in
the main image preview. As with most of my astronomi-
cal-image processing, 1 strive to keep both ends of the
histogram from becoming chopped off or "clipped," so I
monitor this step very carefully.
Below the histogram are four additional tabs. Under the
Tone tab, because we don't want to clip any of the image,
set the White Point and Black Point sliders all the way to
the left, or 0.0%. Next, adjust the Gamma slider to about
0.66. Experiment with this setting to suit your own tastes.
Under the Color tab. change both the Temperature and
Saturation Highlights sliders to 0. and drop the Saturation
Shadows to about -7, in order to tone down the unnatural
blue color of the Moon that is common in long exposures.
The Micro tab allows you to change the micro-contrast
settings in order to extract more detail from the highlight
legions of the corona. It's in these bright regions that you
often find interesting coronal detail such as magnetic
loops above active regions on the Sun's surface. It's fun
to play around with these settings, but keep an eye on Once combined, an unprocessed high- m.n • nui •• MM*
the histogram after each change to judge if your changes dynamic-range (HDR) image is displayed along
enhance or detract from the final result. It's during this with a sub-frame preview window showing
step that 1 try to make sure detail is visible everywhere in the full range of detail visible in user-selected
the image, from the lunar surface to the outer corona. regions of the photograph. The HDR image can
be further processed with Photomatix Pro 3 as
The final tab on the right is labeled S/H for shadows IF» ICI >Hgt fiaifh
well as saved as a raw HDR image and brought
and highlights. I have found that it's not very useful for into other programs capable of working with
astronomical images because it tends to blur or clip detail. 32-bit images, such as Adobe Photoshop CS.
Once you're content with your image, save your set-
tings so that you can retrieve and modify them on another
batch of images, and then click the Process button.
At this point you should have a spectacular image, and
I suggest saving it as a 16-bit TIFF file and also as a JPEG. " siJ ' utikm 'ittß

The entire process from start to finish will have taken a

you less than five minutes! Some eclipse chasers may
c r Í Z «
be happy to stop here, but others may want to continue
processing their images.

Additional Sharpening in Photoshop

•1
If you'd like to enhance your images and reveal details
often overlooked when viewing the corona by unaided eye •BliR

or with binoculars, here are some of the tricks I use to O.H

bring out the subtle coronal structures.

I begin by opening the 16-bit TIFF file in Adobe Photo-
shop CS. Earlier versions of this program will also work,
but only CS and later will allow you to work in layers with PlDUH

¡6-bit data. With the image displayed, I open the Layers

Palette with the pull-down menu Windows>Layers. From
the Tool Palette, I choose the Elliptical Marquee Tool and Phatomatix Pro 3's greatest strength resides in its tone-mapping features.
This allows you to compress the dynamic range spread across several expo-
change the feathering option to 5 pixels.
sures into a single view that reveals details in shadow and highlight regions.
To select a circle that encompasses the entire Moon, It's somewhat akin to a non-linear stretch commonly applied to astronomi-
I start at a corner of the image just beyond the lunar cal deep-sky images.
disk itself. While holding the shift key and mouse but-
ton simultaneously, I drag the cursor diagonally across

SkyandTelescope.com junt 200C) 67

 imaging Technique
Applying a few layers of high-pass filtering in Adobe Photoshop is an easy
way to accentuate the delicate streamers, prominences, and magnetic
loops in the 5olar corona.
LAYER MODE
Each layer in which high-pass filtering is applied needs to be changed
from Normal mode to Overlay in the Layers palette in order to achieve
the benefits of this sharpening technique.
MOON-LAYER
High-pass sharpening also makes the Moon appear unnaturally bright
To subdue this effect you can make a selection with the Elliptical Mar-
quee Tool and copy the lunar disk from the bottom layer, then paste it
on the top of your layer stack. This way you can then adjust this layer
independently from the rest of the image.
68 June200g SKY & TELESCOPE
the image until I create a circular selection that roughly
encompasses the Moon. I can then move this selection
to properly center the Moon within it by using the arrow
keys on the keyboard. To grow or shrink the selection, I
simply use the pull-down menu Select>Modify>Expand
or Contract, and adjust the circle's size until it's just a few
pixels larger than the lunar disk.
Next I use Edit>Copy, then Edit>Paste, to make a new
layer with only the Moon visible. This allows me to adjust
its appearance separately from that of the solar corona.
To enhance the corona, I click on the Background layer
in the Layers Palette, copy it, and paste it onto the image
five times. Four of these new layers will be used for sharp-
ening the image, and one will be used to suppress any
highhght clipping during the final stages.
I begin the process by clicking on Layer 2 and pulling
down the High Pass filter (Filter>Other>HÍgh Pass). The
window that pops up controls the radius of sharpening
applied to this layer. For the four sharpening layers I usu-
ally use filter radii of 100, 50, 25, and 12, which increase
the visibility of coarse and fine detail in the corona. ;
Again, you can experiment with these settings.
To apply these sharpening layers to the final image,
I change the mode in the Layers palette from Normal to
Overlay. The result will be immediate. I have to make
sure that all my sharpening layers are below the layer
containing the Moon, or else the lunar disk will become
over-sharpened relative to the corona.
When I'm satisfied with the sharpening levels, the
inner corona is often blown out. To fix this, I simply seliect
the layer with the High Pass filter set to the largest radius
of sharpening, then chose the Eraser tool and erase the
over-blown area near the lunar limb. I can also change the
eraser tool's radius to control how much I erase from edch
successive layer.
Finally, I select Layer 1 and apply a curve (lmage>
Adjustments>Curves) to the image to suppress the
brightest regions, and bring out the faintest reaches of the
corona captured in the series. I can also use the Curves
palette to colorize the sky background and simulate the
deep-blue sky visible during totality.
When I'm done, I save this layered image as a Photo-
shop document (PSD format) in case 1 want to come back
later and experiment with some of the layers or apply
other techniques to further enhance the image.
With the new digital-processing toots available to
eclipse chasers, creating breathtaking portraits of a total
solar eclipse has never been easier. Results that once took
weeks of careful manipulation in a darkroom can now be
accomplished on your laptop computer before the end of
the partial phases! •
Sky & Telescope imaging editor Sean Walker is looking
forward to a chance to stand in the Moon's umbral shadow.