Editing the Orion Core Nebula (The Trapezium)
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First, you need to capture The Orion Nebula for a couple of minutes using an exposure time of 2 seconds. This is a critical step, otherwise longer exposure times may clip the Core. This tutorial has been made on a 1 minute exposure at 2s.
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Crop the image so that the Core fills the screen. Take a look at the example for reference:
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To get a clear view of the target without any presets applied, open the Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation settings and click “Reset” to bring all parameters back to 0:
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To get a better view of the underlying details and focus more precisely on editing the nebula, temporarily remove all the stars. Click on the Star Reduction icon and set the value to 100%:
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Open the Brightness tab and lower the global brightness a lot: this will ensure that the intense brightness of the core is a bit more controlled, unveiling some details. Don't worry about the darker area because we will recover them a bit on the next step. On my edit I used a brightness value of -60:
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Open RGB Curves and create a curve similar to the one shown. This S-curve is essential for reducing the highlights and increasing the brightness of shadows. The middle points help in controlling the mid-tones. This will expose the Trapezium (core) of the Orion Nebula:
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Open the Contrast tab and increase a little bit the value in order to restore the contrast of the image. I used a value of +17.
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Go to the Saturation tab and increase the saturation a lot to make the colors more vibrant. In this case I used a value of +62, but you can play a bit to see what works best for you:
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I can notice a bit of green cast on the core, so if you want to reduce it a bit go to the G channel and reduce just a tiny bit the green. Don't lower the curve too much, otherwise the whole image will turn magenta!
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Go then to the B channel. Just click once on the lower part of the curve to set anchor point (red square) in order to avoid introducing color shifts in the shadows while we work on the highlights. Increase just a bit the blue curve on the hightlights (red circle). Try not to move the curve too high otherwise the image will become blue. This will add a touch of blue/magenta on the core. See the image for reference:
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Now it's time to reduce the noise. Zoom in and gradually increase the Denoise level until the image looks smooth but still retains some natural grain. The ideal setting depends on your image, so aim for a balance between noise reduction and detail preservation. Take a look at the image to see the result:
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You can now bring the stars back by reducing to 0 the Star reduction feature:
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Share your result in the comments and clear skies!
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