Dust and gas context. Top left: MeerKAT H I column density (6″ beam). Top right: stellar E(B–V)_* from stellar continuum fit (Appendix B.1). Bottom left: nebular E(B–V)_gas from the Balmer decrement, masking bins with ΔE(B–V)_gas > 0.1 mag. Both E(B–V) maps share the same color scale. Bottom right: normalized histograms inside the μ₀+1 isophote (blue: stars; red: gas); vertical lines mark the mean (dashed) and median (dotted). Contours show NGFS isophotes; a 1 kpc bar is shown in each map.