Full Astrophotography Processing Tutorial - Beginner Friendly - Free Software - Whirlpool Galaxy pt2

This is a full, beginner friendly tutorial / walkthrough of my complete astrophotography processing workflow.

It's quite a long video because I've not cut corners. I've shown EVERYTHING I do with my own images and done so in a way to teach, rather than just show.

I aim for this to be a one-stop video for the full process from sorting folders to saving the final image using nothing but fully free software.
No pixinsight, no Photoshop - Just Siril, Graxpert, GIMP & Astrosharp.

Making this video has given me a new level of respect for those that do these tutorials. I had to re-record everything a few times and my first attempt was looking to break two hours! I had so many blue screens trying to record the intensive processes, so many unsaved video files and 'start-overs'. I think you can see my beard greying through this video!
I say this so that those awaiting this follow up video to my "M51 capture" understand why it took so long to produce. I really thought a few days would be enough.

If you think my content is worth a small tip you could perhaps buy me a coffee? https://buymeacoffee.com/cheapasstro
As with superthanks, I will credit anyone that donates.

VIDEO LINKS :

‪@NebulaPhotos‬
‪@DeepSpaceAstro‬
Starnet Integration :    • Siril's StarNet Integration: A Game-Change...  
Additional Siril Scripts :    • Stacking in Siril: A Guide to Stacking Onl...  


SOFTWARE LINKS :

Siril - https://siril.org/download/
Starnet - https://www.starnetastro.com/download/ (command line tool)
GIMP - https://www.gimp.org/downloads/
Astrosharp - https://github.com/deepskydetail/Astr... (Code/download .zip)


Chapters :

0:00 About this Tutorial
2:19 File Prep'
3:11 Stacking in Siril
9:37 Cropping
13:10 Graxpert Background Extraction
21:00 Reduce Banding & Green Noise
23:39 Colour Calibration
25:35 Star Removal
27:36 Stretching in Siril
39:53 Colour Curves in GIMP
52:30 Recompose Stars
1:02:20 Astrosharp
1:05:25 Using Masks in GIMP
1:22:32 Custom Image Sizes
1:28:33 Final Image