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Old 31-12-2018, 09:57 AM
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speach (Simon)
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Star tools v. PI

Just had my first look at star tools, I've been using PI for about 3 years now and am still confused by it. On the other hand downloaded Star tools and the first time I put a pic through it it came out reasonable. I've read a few things on ST and watched a few You tube vids on it. Seems like what I want but before I purchase a licence I'd like to hear a few for and against it arguments. Thanks in advance.
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Old 31-12-2018, 07:44 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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I’ve been using Startools for 6 months and as a beginner I wouldn’t use anything else
Very user friendly and get great results every time !
Cheers
PS I wish Ivo Jager would finish a proper user manual for those who need a bit of help with various modules
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Old 01-01-2019, 09:07 AM
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ChrisV (Chris)
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I went the other way - started with ST. really easy to use and gave great results quickly. Used it for about 6 months before moving onto PI. But I still use ST occasionally for a quick look.

Watching Ivo's YouTube's was more than enough to get going. Well worth the price of admission - unlike my football team which hit rock bottom last night. But that's another story. And I'm not going to start a PI v ST comparison - it's like apples and oranges.
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Old 04-01-2019, 07:51 AM
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NorthernLight (Max)
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I am using Startools for a couple of years now and still discover new functionality. It’s a great program and produces great results. I like it’s non-linearity and the workflow organisation of modules. There is a written manual explaining all modules. It’s called the unofficial Startools manual PDF and can be found here http://download.startools.org/StarTo...Unofficial.pdf
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Old 04-01-2019, 11:17 AM
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multiweb (Marc)
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I also like the text log file it writes so you have a history of what you did for each picture you process. That's invaluable when you shoot the same or a similar target 6 months down the road and wonder what you did at the time. It's also a great way to learn from other processings. Startools is different from PI. It's like comparing apples and oranges IMHO. Startools is more like a post process, PI does it all from stacking to processing.
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Old 04-01-2019, 01:52 PM
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Andy01 (Andy)
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ST works great! Probably one of the best for sharpening & Noise Reduction.
I could never properly figure out the colour module (or the wipe) but can easily do those bits in PS.

Must remember to use it again - I've been very happy with the Astro pixel Processor > Photoshop workflow to date.

Reckon that APP>Startools>PS could be a winner!

PS : Being a visual learner, I've never attempted to use Pixinsite - way to unfriendly for a visual guy.
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Old 14-01-2019, 12:05 PM
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sil (Steve)
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Personally Photoshop makes me cringe for astrophotography. tools just dont have precision greater than 8bits mostly. PixInsight is just awesome but yes the learning curve can be steeper than walking on the ceiling. But its easy for me to understand and work with (not intuitive without learning it), AstroPixelProcessor gives close to PI results and much easier to use for beginners or simple brainless workflow, its really hard to fault its results and capabilities but its tools I find annoying to tweak and take the output into PI. Startools I badly wanted to like and following tutorials was easy but when I put my poor resolution data into it I can't get the same sort of adjustments with it. So I've given up on it. Nebulosity and AstroArt simliarly I bought years ago and havent used as they weren't friendly to my capture format and workflow needs. Thats not to say they are bad programs only I'm a BAD user and just cant get my head around them. For me PixInsight does it all, the hardest part of all these programs is understanding what each tool it has is for and therefore when to use it. Just like there are times a saw is the tool to use not the hammer. But if you don't understand what a saw or hammer does or how to use it or when then it doesn't matter how shiny or expensive your box of tools is. Its really best to try all the programs you can. and that means actually try. If you look at a screenshot and just go "nope thats too hard" then there's no program you'll ever be happy with since you clearly dont give these things a proper try. ie use demo versions, go through a variety of tutorials by different people (not everyone is a good communicator so a poor tutorial can put you off or make things more confusing. If you want good processing as brainless as possible I recommend AstroPixelProcessor as you don't need to do any tweaking to get a good final jpeg image from it. just run each of the numbered tabs steps in order and default values are pretty good.
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