Crescent Moon HDR

From a bracketed set of exposures, create a single High Dynamic Range image.

Reverse chronological order (most recent at the top)

Third attempt, blur size 5 pixels, and adjusted one of the shifts by one pixel which really mitigated the red edge. [At this focal length, 140mm) the Moon shifts enough, 3 pixels, in 2 seconds, that I have to move it]. I half-solved the problem of dimming in the middle of the crescent. I needed to multiply the short exposures, but oddly not by the difference in EV. Perhaps some operator error in there? In GIMP using curves it is surprisingly hard to brighten the earthshine without blowing out the crescent.

Next step:

Look into eliminating blooming before compositing

Older stuff below

Here's the second attempt (with a mask blur of 9 pixels). Obviously there should be no dimming in the middle of the crescent. I have yet to bother going after the bloom (one step at a time). Simply using -auto-level when converting from an average of 5 frames. And I have not tried to minimize grain or do any other processing.

Older stuff below

Progress! Thanks to snibgo's help (https://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?p=172589#p172589) , I've been able to "import" my Canon CR2 raw images into XYZ linear colorspace!

Next steps are:

1) combine two of the exposures, then convert back to normal display range.

2) Mask the blown-out pixels before compositing

3) Look into creating a good enhancement curve

4) Look into eliminating blooming before compositing

ImageMagick commands (from http://im.snibgo.com/lincamraw.htm#scref ):

Install notes: [Windows!]

• Build a Q32 HDRI enabled ImageMagick [download/extract into a user folder, NOT the permissions-required "Program Files"]: uninstall IM to avoid using the wrong one later. You will (likely) need to install Microsoft VisualBasic (free) . Choose "configure.sln" when opening a project. From the dropdown pick the most updated toolset, mine was 14.2, which I had to then use Visual Studio Installer to add MFC libraries. Again pick the matching 14.2. It all went smoothly which surprised me a little. When you run the Configure project you just built in VisualBasic, that's when you choose HDRI and Q32. Then you'll need to add the VisualMagick\bin to your environment PATH so you can call Magick and convert without the full path.
• Get icc profiles from https://github.com/ellelstone/elles_icc_profiles/tree/master/profiles. Recommended for me were: sRGB-elle-V4-g10.icc and sRGB-elle-V4-srgbtrc.icc. You place a copy of these in your working image directory. If you choose a sub-directory or somewhere in the IM folder, then in the -profile switch you need add the sub-directory or full path.

Older below:

This is a tough subject. I'm not happy with enfuse output. Part of the challenge is eliminating the blooming/bleeding, and the other is doing this in batch because manually doesn't work for 500 sets in one time-lapse event.