That time an old forum guy told me to trust my eyes over the software

Back in 2017 I was stacking images of the Andromeda galaxy with some free software and the colors looked all wrong. Everything came out purple and green no matter what I did. I posted in a beginner group asking for help and this one retired guy who'd been doing astrophotography since the 80s told me to just open the RAW files and look at them myself, then adjust by eye. I thought he was crazy because everyone online said to follow the tutorials. Spent a week fighting the tools and getting worse results. Finally tried his way on a whim, just tweaked curves until it looked like what I actually saw through the eyepiece. Took maybe 20 minutes and it looked better than anything I'd made in a month. The software is good but it doesn't know what you're going for. Has anyone else found that older advice about manual processing beats the auto stuff?

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phoenix2143h ago

Calling it "manual beats auto" is a bit off, since you were still using the curves tool, just not trusting the auto settings. The real point is that your eyes know what the target should look like and the software doesn't, which is why that guy's advice worked.

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