1. Making Your Own Color AstroImages
Learning to Love the DSS
Al Kelly

13. Preparation of the DSS images for color compositing is now complete.
Although the compositing can be accomplished in most image processing programs, including AIPV2, MaxIm DL, PixInsight, Photoshop, etc., later versions of Photoshop (8.0 and up) have the most flexibility and provide the best results.
The remaining slides show how to create the color composite in Photoshop.

30. Caveats and Final Thoughts:
HST Phase 2 images are available for the northern celestial hemisphere
only. “Green” images for the southern hemisphere can be synthesized
by averaging the Red and Blue images.
In order to load FITS images into Photoshop, you will need a plug-in loader,
which can be obtained free online from Eddie Trimarchi or FITS Liberator
When processing dim nebulae (low surface brightness galaxies, etc.),
it is often better to run two stages of DDP and linear stretching on the
luminance image. Do what is described on charts 9 and 10, then do the
same steps again on the result.
The image processing described here works equally well on filtered
CCD images that you take yourself. BEWARE: If you don’t have an
astronomical CCD camera, once you successfully do this type of
processing you may not be able to stop yourself from buying one!