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Old 13-10-2019, 06:02 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Startools version 1.5

Has anyone upgraded to Startools 1.5 yet ?
I found the latest PDF manual on startoolsastro@gmail.com ( 245 page doc )
I’m interested to find out what improvements or additional tools have been provided for processing
I’ve used 1.4 for nearly 2 years and would you believe I’m still finding things through my workflow to improve the final image

Cheers
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Old 13-10-2019, 09:17 PM
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Chris85 (Chris)
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I've been using it for the last few weeks after been away from astro for a year and the changes do seem pretty worthwhile. I can only compare to 1.3 but the new compose module is unreal with its channel extraction and synthetic luminance creation. The colour module has been revamped with added focus for narrowband users. I find the work flow so much easier and intuitive than previous versions. Apart from preprocessing, I processed this https://astrob.in/7pz07q/0/ in about 30min with a bit of colour refining in PS.
Definitely upgrade!
Cheers, Chris
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Old 15-10-2019, 03:01 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Thanks Chris
Sounds like it’s a no brainer to upgrade
Nice M8 by the way , plenty of detail and rich colours
I’ll probably upgrade in January to start the new year off
I have a licence already so what’s the procedure for upgrading
Martin
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Old 15-10-2019, 10:25 PM
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irwjager (Ivo)
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Super timely post as I just uploaded a 1.5 Maintenance Release and a new 1.6 alpha.

Lots of new features and improvements in both (see CHANGELOG file for details) vs 1.3.5 and even 1.4. If you're doing narrowband, have a look at the 1.6 alphas, as you can now choose from a great number of popular color blends ("Matrix" option the the Color module) with the click of a button without having to recomposite and redo your processing. SHO, HOS, Duoband and more are supported.

Clear skies!


PS Lovely M8!
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Old 16-10-2019, 07:41 AM
Stefan Buda
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Hi Ivo,

There is a question I wanted to ask you for a long time.

Why is it impossible to reproduce the result of AutoDev with manual settings of the Develop button? This problem has been frustrating me for a long time, as AutoDev tends to be a bit extreme and manual development doesn't go near as far in bringing up the background.

I'm still using version 1.3 and probably overlooking something.

Cheers,
Stefan
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Old 16-10-2019, 11:15 AM
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irwjager (Ivo)
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Hi Stefan,


Thank for your question! Firstly, the latest 1.5 and 1.6 have an AutoDev that behaves differently and more controlled (and come with two more controls too).

Develop, as does most other software, takes a specific mathematical formula, where some terms/variables can be varied. Develop, in StarTools, uses a specific function introduced by Kunihiko Okano that emulates the response of a traditional film camera (more info on the function here). Other software uses (or offers) ArcSinH as well, however this is mostly because this function is better at color retention (an issue that ST obviously does not suffer from thanks to its signal evolution Tracking).

AutoDev, on the other hand, analyses the image for actual content and detail, and then formulates a custom transformation curve to what is needed to bring out all detail it detected as much as possible. This means that the transformation curves can look very different between images (or Regions of Interest) indeed. AutoDev images - especially as of 1.5/1.6 will show much better controlled highlights and shadows, providing excellent starting points for further detail recovery or accentuation using more advanced tools.

To illustrate the effectiveness of AutoDev;

http://download.startools.org/Tutori...utodev_SBS.png
(M101 by Jim Misti, left Develop, right AutoDev).

AutoDev autonomously managed to figure out a stretch that is very close to a manual DDP but allocated slightly more dynamic range to the faint, large scale detail (for example 8 o'clock, 11 o'clock); bringing out this detail is now easier (if you spotted it to begin with!).

TL;DR Develop uses one function that fits-them-all, while AutoDev uses custom functions that - objectively - yield more appropriate results for the dataset at hand.
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Old 16-10-2019, 01:14 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Hi Ivo,
Thanks for commenting on this post , I’m very excited about the new version
When I first started using Startools v1.4 I tended to solely use Develop for my stretch ( a bit ignorant) but after some time got my head around AutoDev and it definitely brought out more detail and features than ever before. I guess trial / error and experimenting with this module gives you a better understanding of it and therefore utilising the tool to take your image processing to another level
Thanks again
Martin
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Old 16-10-2019, 01:37 PM
Stefan Buda
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Thanks Yvo,

Great response.

I must upgrade to a newer version.

Regards,
Stefan
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