Solar Processing Question on proms

[Altocumulus]

I'm hoping it's not just me - but it happens on both my 'scopes in CaK and Ha - but how does
everyone cater for the glare that creeps into prom shots. Even if I expose for the disc and tease out the proms in processing, there's a
stage when the glare damages the proms.

I ken I could painstakingly crawl with ants around each prom and process through masking - but is that really the only solution?

[Solsearcher]

I know exactly what you are talking about Geoff and I don't care for the red "skyglow" I see in images either .

For me the key is in the gamma control used at the capture stage . Higher gamma will bring up the proms but also increases the glow . If the proms are heavy with lots of structure I will not raise the gamma to highlight them but lower the exposure a bit to brighten the whole image . I will lower the exposure to find the proms then increase it to darken the image to where the surface detail comes into view . At this point in most cases the proms will likely be difficult to see in the live view but they will still be there and can be brightened up in post processing .
It is much easier to remove what you don't want at the capture stage than after in my opinion .

I posted this a couple of weeks ago and is a good example of what I look for in my capture , first pic is the raw stack before any processing , the proms are hardly visible but there is also no glow . The proms can be easily brightened up in post processing .


Raw Tiff

3 versions of the processed image

Prom alone without surface

[Altocumulus]

Exactly what I'm aiming for - though your seeing looks way better than mine!

I use Sharpcap and, with the PlayerOne and ZWO cams, there's no gamma setting to worry about.

This morning I was, in general, using Zero or upto 50 Gain, exposure below 7ms to give about a 70% histogram, generally 70-100fps - but there's a glare when the
images are processed. Just watched a couple of videos from Marty(?) where he uses various photoshop techniques including dodge and burn.

I can't seem to tease out the proms without introducing the glare, and also noise.

More practice needed I guess in all stages of the capture.

[Solsearcher]

You are correct about the conditions Geoff , I will not set up unless my conditions will support decent images . I am happy to report that my sky has been better this year than it has been in the past 3-4 years . It has been nice to see blue again !

I did some reading on ZWO cameras and I do have sharpcap loaded but this is not what I use for my primary cameras .
ZWO discontinued the gamma control for their cameras some time ago and this is the reason it does not show up in Sharpcap , if I use Sharpcap with my DMK cameras it will give me a gamma control .
I bought my DMK cameras 20 years ago before the CMOS cameras became popular for solar , unfortunately my experience is with these dated cameras . The gamma control is a valuable tool to have for the capture in my opinion . My old DMK cameras are CCD and not CMOS like most solar cameras today . I am not sure if this has anything to do with the discontinuation of gamma control on these cameras or not but I am sure there is a way to produce the same results without having a gamma control for the capture .
Hopefully others with more up to date cameras will chime in for you .