Andromeda Galaxy (M31), v2 - With Details Improvements

This is a follow up to my Andromeda Galaxy post from last night, where I started the processing in a bit different way. The ambition for this project was to get as much details as possible from the dataset, all the way to the core.

For those who have already worked on the TL CMOS LRGB set, you'd know that there was some serious gradient and vignetting to fight to begin with.

Since I had recently bought the Affinity Photo 2 (although have been using Photoshop for more than a decade, you can't miss that there is a lot of recommendations going on for Affinity Photo for astrophotographers), I decided to jump right into Affinity Photo from the aligned and integrated result from PixInsight (with the previously mentioned terrible gradient and vignetting).

I used Haze Removal followed by RC-Astro GradientXTerminator, which together seems to have managed for the most part the vignetting and the gradient issues.

Now onto the details challenge - I used Selective Colour adjustments on every colour, which amazingly pulled out all those details I mostly missed out in my version from last night.

Since I am relatively new to Affinity Photo, I jumped back to Adobe Photoshop and Camera Raw where in the course of likely hundred adjustment layers for every part of the galaxy, I've enhanced details and colors and reduced the overexposure of the core without loosing details or unnaturally darkening it.

From there, I exported a PNG and jumped to StarTools where I worked further on the stars deconvolution first and then their ultimate dimming (there were just too many and too bright stars in the way).

Then back to Photoshop for final touches and last but not least using StarsXTerminator to separate the stars from the galaxy and with careful blending bring only as much stars in the galaxy as necessary.

Topaz Gigapixel was also used for further details enhancements.

For me this is the ultimate and super detailed view of the Andromeda Galaxy, and I totally enjoyed working on it and I hope you like it too :)