A random Redditor told me my Jupiter photos were overprocessed and they were totally right

I spent like 6 months stacking and sharpening my Jupiter shots to the point where the bands looked like neon stripes, thinking more detail was better. Someone in a comment said I was crushing the data and losing all the natural texture, so I tried a lighter touch with just Registax and no extra sharpening. Now the planet actually looks like a real thing in space instead of a bad painting, has anyone else had to dial back their processing after getting called out?

3 comments

3 Comments

john_cooper6d ago

Buddy of mine turned his moon pics into cheese with too much sharpening.

brown.gavin17d ago

...and then you look at the originals and realize you were basically trying to polish a turd that was already pretty decent. I did the same thing with my Saturn shots a while back, went way overboard with wavelet sharpening until the rings looked like they were made of Lego blocks. Someone finally told me to back off and just let the data breathe, and honestly it felt like cheating at first because it was so much less work. But now when I compare old and new, the old ones look like someone ran them through a cartoon filter, not a telescope.

alex_johnson17d ago

You ever notice how the "underprocessed" versions actually look more 3D? Too much sharpening flattens everything out, kills the depth that makes it feel real.