Why can we see the Pillars of Creation, but not Proxima B? I was wondering how is it that we can see the Pillars of Creation (I know they're no longer there too) which are labeled as 6,500 light years away from earth and yet Proxima B is labeled at just 4.2 light years away and yet we cannot see it clearly and it was very difficult to find?

I understand that the Pillars of Creation are giant gas bubbles with different molecules that make it so visible and Proxima B is a relatively tiny planet that doesn't emit light but I cannot fathom how much greater the distance is from Proxima B and yet it is clearly much more visible. Shouldn't our current technology be able to view 'close up' images of Proxima B?

What am I missing here?
First, let's talk about size. The Pillars of Creation aren't just "giant gas bubbles"; they're clouds of gas and dust four light-years long. That's enormous, about 36,000,000,000,000 kilometers. Proxima Centauri b, on the other hand, has a diameter of 0.8-1.4 Earth diameters; one Earth diameter is approximately 12,700 kilometers. That's miniscule, in comparison.

Let's look at the angular diameters of the objects. The general formula is
$$\delta=2\arctan\left(\frac{\text{diameter}}{2\cdot\text{distance}}\right)$$
where the angular diameter is in radians. The Pillars of Creation are 6,500 light-years away, conservatively, giving just them an angular length of $3.52\times10^{-2}$ degrees. Proxima Centauri b is 4 light-years away, with an angular diameter of about $2.02\times10^{-8}$ degrees. 6 orders of magnitude is nothing to sneeze at.

Additionally, the Pillars of Creation are located in an emission nebula. Light from the young stars that have just been born ionizes gas in the Eagles Nebula, which in turn emits the light. The dark gas and dust in the Pillars of Creation stands out quite sharply in all of this, making it easy to see.