Ever wondered how they colorize photos from space?

I can't claim that ALL photos from space are processed this way, but at least in the case of Hubble and other such places, here's how it's done.

There's a little known photoshop plugin called FITS Liberator that's used, and it's now available to the public.

For many years astronomical images from the world’s telescopes were reserved for an elite of astronomers and technical people. Now anyone with a desktop computer running Adobe® Photoshop® software can try their hand at crafting astronomical images as beautiful as those from the Hubble Space Telescope. This free software plug-in, makes a treasure trove of archival astronomical images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and many other famous telescopes accessible to home astronomy enthusiasts.

...With the advent of the FITS Liberator v.2, it became possible for people at home to create even more spectacular pictures like the iconic Hubble image “Pillars of Creation” in a matter of minutes.

For more information, go here:

www.spacetelescope.org...

For instructions, go here:

www.spacetelescope.org...