My recommendation is that do not bother to try thinking too hard about Mars image colors, it's deep and ultimately unsatisfactory rabbithole, just enjoy the pic

My recommendation is that do not bother to try thinking too hard about Mars image colors, it's deep and ultimately unsatisfactory rabbithole, just enjoy the pictures as they are. Here is another rendering of the same raw data: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nev-t/55357706514/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/nev-t/55357706514/ It is no less or more non-adjusted, all digital colors are interpretations of some sort. Of course you can also download the raws from NASA/JPL and process them yourself. But then you have to make the decisions on how to render the colors. areo.info has some information about their own image processing pipeline for M2020/Perseverance images (the successor mission of MSL/Curiosity), with good links: https://areo.info/mars20/ https://areo.info/mars20/ Lot of that information should be applicable to Curiosity too. But on the other hand I personally think many of their renderings look pretty weird so take the info with a grain of salt?