NASA Shows How Photoshop Is Used To Create Stunning Images Of Space (VIDEO)

Ever wonder how NASA creates those stunning, brilliantly colored images from space? Wonder no more! The agency has created a time-lapse video demonstrating the effort behind imaging the cosmos.

The video (below) shows how Photoshop is used to reconstruct a Hubble panorama of spiral galaxy NGC 3982. Data from seven greyscale image of the galaxy are scaled, rotated, and combined into one image that undergoes color retouching and further editing before it is is ready for release. The whole process takes 10 hours.

Gizmodo explains why NASA chooses to Photoshop its images:

Scientists have to choose how to represent this information in a way that we can observe directly. Sometimes they will use a natural representation, which is very close to what we would see if we zoomed there inside the Enterprise. Other times they will choose representative color, which helps them see invisible features of the object—like those that can only be captured in infrared or ultraviolet light. And sometimes they show the image in enhanced color, a hyperrealist mode that brings a lot of hidden, subtle details.

Watch the video to see the process unfold, then explore NASA's HubbleSite to learn more about the story behind these epic pictures. For more incredible images, click on over to our slideshow of 10 amazing Hubble images.

WATCH: [via Geekosystem]

Comments

[SilentSolidarity]

12:52 PM on 03/28/2011

Those are the pics so that the clueless masses have an idea of what NASA is doing. Those images are nothing but space romance for scientists, but good evidence that something gets done there.

[Fabini]

05:27 PM on 03/28/2011

I agree, it is space romance. I also think the colorization does a disservice to us all. Deep space is Black, gray, and white.

[palindrom]

11:10 PM on 03/28/2011

Well, nebulae have a bunch of monochromatic lines, like H-alpha, which is a brilliant pinkish-red. So it's not quite that simple (never is).

[shthar]

03:43 AM on 03/28/2011

Government agency 'enhances' pictures huh?

Nothin new here.

[NunyaBus99]

01:14 AM on 03/28/2011

I think it is cool. I have no issues with the process considering our eyes are incapable of seeing spectrum of light outside the visible range. This is a way for us to experience what we could not normally see.

[Mister Grumpy]

12:15 AM on 03/28/2011

Big deal........ there are lots of programs that can do this also..............

[Texxinois]

04:05 AM on 03/28/2011

SAP right?

[jsarets]

10:47 PM on 03/27/2011

One issue with astronomical imagery is that the visible spectrum of the human eye is not sufficient or even an especially relevant spectrum for studying the cosmos.

Hubble's optics were designed to include the visible spectrum in part as an attempt to better relate to the taxpaying laypeople who would be footing the bill and in part because Hubble was based on the Keyhole KH-11 reconnaissance satellites.

But Hubble also sees in the near-infrared and ultraviolet spectra, and the optical data collected in these wavelengths cannot be directly translated into a visible representation. These "colors" must be mapped onto colors that humans can actually see for representative imagery to be produced.

The imagery produced by Hubble's successor, the Webb Space Telescope, will always be artificially color-mapped because Webb is designed to see exclusively in the infrared spectrum. Infrared is substantially more valuable to astronomers than the visible spectrum.

Webb will be able to see very distant and ancient stars as well as planets of closer stars because it can see through the gas and dust clouds that reflect visible light. But what Webb won't do is see the universe as the human eye would see it or produce images to that effect.

We have to get past this notion that astronomical imagery is "fake" or otherwise faulty because the data has been artificially color-mapped. The human eye is a magnificent sensory organ, but it's not the be-all end-all of capturing and interpreting light. The astronomers aren't correcting for the limitations of their equipment so much as they are correcting for the limitations of human physiology.

[SilentSolidarity]

12:58 PM on 03/28/2011

Do you know what spectrum is translated into which particular color?

I would assume that ultraviolet would be shifted to the violet spectrum while infrared goes towards the red spectrum. But what about the other "colors"?

[SilentSolidarity]

12:59 PM on 03/28/2011

Also, I think part of the reason why they have to change the images is due to the red shift that shifts some visible colors into the invisible spectrum. No?

[crayola 08b]

10:43 PM on 03/27/2011

ok what? the hubble can't take color pictures? really?

[jsarets]

11:07 PM on 03/27/2011

The way an ordinary camera works is by capturing three monochrome images through three different filters (typically red, green, and blue). Then the camera synthesizes these three frames into one color frame with each pixel represented by relative intensity of the three primary colors.

Hubble works in much the same way, except it has at least 48 different filters spread from the near-infrared to the ultraviolet wavelengths. It can capture a monochrome image through any number of these filters, and these exposures can be synthesized into color representations in many more ways than are applicable to an ordinary camera that only sees in red, green, and blue. 

This is where the post-processing comes into play. Hubble can see colors that we can't see, and astronomers are interested in particular wavelengths (for example the spectral lines of various elements) that don't occupy complementary positions on the color wheel of the human eyeball.

All color cameras are really black-and-white cameras that see in multiple colors. Hubble is just an extreme example of this concept. Hence the misunderstanding.

[crayola 08b]

09:20 PM on 03/28/2011

thanks. Professor Chaos. do you work in the field cause you seem to know alot about the particulars.

[computer guy]

11:14 AM on 03/28/2011

It's not that it can't take them, It's that space has no color. They are enhancing the pictures to get the wow factor to keep the money flowing into Nasa. Boring black and white pictures would lead to decreased funding.

[HekofajobBrownie]

05:32 PM on 03/28/2011

I understand NASA needs to get the funding so they commercialize the product. But I myself would like to gaze at the damn thing as if I was looking at it from my home telescope (say like looking the moon), but up close like that, just to fantasize what a galaxy would really look like if I were traveling in space. Why don't they just show us both photos (like at the beginning of that video), and let us see both. Some of us don't need it sugar coated. If they can doll it up, let them make it look real.

[crayola 08b]

09:02 PM on 03/28/2011

space has no color? how is that possible when there's so much color in our planet and the planets and moons in our solar system. surely they can just take a normal color picture and let us see what it looks like untouched by photoshop.

[SaneThoughts]

07:44 PM on 03/27/2011

These images are great but if you were traveling in space and looked out a window would it look the same as the Photoshopped images?

[Julien Henry]

09:27 PM on 03/27/2011

lol.. nope-- its exponentially magnified.....

[jaredbrain]

11:29 AM on 03/28/2011

nope, disappointing eh? Space is way more boring than we thought...