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Colour
Grey
Golden
It is not uncommon that
photographers de-saturates the moon images to make a gray
image. The moon does not have any colour anyway so why
bother about things like colour noise?
Wrong! The moon has
colour indeed, but it is very weak and subtle. In order to
make the colours show one need to boost saturation quite a
bit. Doing that one has to watch out for colour noise.
The colour noise problem
is mitigated by stacking several images (increase signal to
noise ratio). There is also a trick in Photoshop. Normally
one would increase saturation by using the Image >
Adjustments > Hue/Saturation command and then drag the
Saturation slider. An alternative that does not introduce as
much colour noise is to use Image > Adjustments > Match
Color and then adjust the Color Intensity slider.
Just to give you an idea
on how weak the colours are the Match Color command has been
used on its maximum setting five times on the image above!
More information on the
Colours of the Moon can be found
here.
Since normally the moon
is shown gray I have provided a gray image available by
mouse over of the word Gray at the top. Sometimes you also
see moon images having a "golden" colour, simulating the way
we sometimes perceive the golden sun shining on the moon. By
mouse over the word Golden at the top will show a golden
image.
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