Natural Saturn — no Topaz ring and shadow study
Real AS!4 10% 1.5× drizzle data and genuine RegiStax 6 wavelet reruns. No Topaz, no pasted Gold Mid rings, no extra ring whitening or contrast clipping. All displayed sources share the same exact 480×300 pixel grid. Use the draggable divider to inspect the C ring, Cassini Division, ring shadow and bright equatorial band.
Fixed image comparisons
How these versions were made
The original comes directly from AutoStakkert! 4. The three sharper variants are independent real native RegiStax wavelet processing of the original TIFF: -10% (28.4 / 17.8 / 8.1), -20% (25.2 / 15.8 / 7.2), and -35% (20.5 / 12.9 / 5.9) for wavelet layers 1–3; layers 4–6 remain 0.9. Original session RGB channel gains and identical 24% 3×3 median noise reduction were applied consistently to all three. There is no Topaz processing on any image in this study, no artificial detail, no separate color grade, no high-contrast ring transplant or clipping.
The optional -35% + low-tone lift uses a modest fixed RGB luminance-based curve to make darker real source pixels easier to see (multiplication by 1 + 0.12 × (1 − luminance)²). It cannot recover details not recorded. The ring shadow may legitimately be dark; judging its exact shade from a reference alone would be inappropriate.
All TIFF masters are saved as 16-bit RGB, with exact provenance in the processing manifest.