Processing nightmare

[raymo]

As I have said before on IIS, I have been film astroimaging for over
50yrs, so I am mortified to be stuck in a never ending nightmare
called image processing. All the time I stuck to single image,high ISO
JPEGs and did a little tweaking in PS, everything went along pretty much
o.k. Then I opened a Pandora's box called raw, and everything fell in a screaming heap.
Firstly, my comp won't open raw[cr2] images. Got round that.
Second, I put 6 x 30sec subs into DSS, registered and stacked them,
and all I got was a strip of one sub 25mm wide by 125mm high on
the screen, and it had lost all colour.
Third, when saving results in DSS, it sends the image to my documents
o.k. but they are in a file format my comp can't open. It says the files
are a compressed TIFF type that it can't open. When I found a file
opening program on the net, lo and behold, all the results were monochrome.
Fourthly, I set the file type in DSS to raw, and import the subs, but
nothing happens when I try to import the darks; they just sit there
and jeer at me. Why is it that DSS and Neatimage can handle raw
images, but Windows can't.
I actually have more problems, but I figure that's enough to be going
on with. HELP!!!
raymo

[JB80]

As a first thing, if the output image in DSS is coming out as a strip down the screen then you probably need to use the beta version which can be found here.... http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DeepSkyStacker/info

Also when DSS autosaves a TIFF in generally does it as 32bit which Photoshop doesn't like so if you can save the result as a 16bit TIFF it may help.

You have a number of things to work through there and you will get there in the end but I think the first step is to download the beta version and see if that helps things.

[raymo]

Back again. Tried Beta, no change; I found that my existing version
supported my 1100D anyway. Tried outputting in 16 and 32, no change.
Still won't import darks. Not once has any astro software that I have used
[or tried to] worked as it should straight away. I have always had to fix one thing or another. There are so many file types, that this or that
software is not compatible with. I've had it; I'm pushing 80 and it's doing my head in. I'm going back to single 6400 ISO JPEGs with noise
reduction enabled, and reduce noise further in Neatimage. My comp
won't open raw files, and any software that will , loads me up with all
sorts of unwanted stuff. Thanks for reading all about my frustrations
Jarrod. I give up.
raymo:(:(:(

[cometcatcher]

I use a Pentax not Canon and I just shoot with jpeg. I've looked closely at the difference between raw and fine jpeg and... I can't see any. Dunno how Canon compares.

Why ISO 6400 though?

[Bassnut]

Use the software that caMe with yr camera to conVert to tiff 1 st. You were convinced in another thread to stick with DSLR, so live with that. Seems to me your winging it without doing some basic homework or reading standard text on DSLR astro imaging. If minimizing time on a PC is your gain as you stated, this is a bad start.

[raymo]

Hi Kevin, Everyone seems to think that raw is better, so I thought that
I'd better see for myself; apparently you do lose some fine detail in JPEG.
Regarding ISO 6400, I actually use anything between 1600 and 6400,
depending upon how well I've polar aligned on the night. At my age
humping my HEQ5 Go To and 8" newt in and out is becoming a bit
burdensome, not to mention all the other bits and pieces that one needs.
So, sometimes I only align with a compass, and therefore have to keep
the exposures short. Neatimage does a pretty good job of reducing the
resultant noise. Incidentally, I've never been able to find anything that
tells me how to upload images to IIS; although ,I don't know how to
downsize my images to a size suitable for uploading anyway. As you can
tell, I'm not exactly comp literate. I sorely miss the relative simplicity
of my film days. Although highly skilled digital imagers can produce
amazing pics, I feel that reality has left the hobby, and artistic
interpretation has taken over. For example, the other week there was
a row of about 5 images of 253 in this forum from various imagers, and
they were 5 distinctly different colours. It seems that some imagers
produce results that they find aesthetically pleasing, rather than the
colour that the object actually is.
raymo

[cometcatcher]

Ray, how to upload images (see pics). Firstly, don't use the quick reply box, rather press the "add reply" button on the lower left of the page. Once you do that, scroll down until you see the "manage attachments" button. Pressing that brings up another box where you can upload images from your hard drive using the "browse" button. Then you press the "upload" button and Bob's your aunty, you've uploaded an image.

I think the forum has an auto resize feature, but a good little program if you don't have it already is IRFANVIEW. It's free to download and is easy to use. Good for images of anything from Aunty Jack, stars or the cat. ;)

If you are having trouble just yell.

[raymo]

Thankyou so much, really appreciated.
raymo

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi Raymo,

Looks like your getting a little frustrated there.
But hang in there :) it will get better if you put the time in on the PC.
I use an unmodded Canon 1100D too, and you can get good results.
As Fred stated you need to install the software for your camera called (EOS Utility).
As for myself, I convert raws into 16 bit tiffs, which is handled by (digital photo professional) again software that comes with the camera.
Although I can use raws in the 3.3 version of Deep Sky stacker, I have far more success with tiffs.
Again personal preference and the way I process.

Don't forget to convert all dark, flat and bias frames to 16 bit tiff too.
DSS won't have any problems reading these.
Now for DSS.
You will see in the menu on the left Options - settings.
Go to settings.
Stacking settings.
Result.
Select standard mode.
Then go to ( light ) and select median.
Repeat this option for darks and flat frames.
Again in options - settings, go register settings and set to around 30%.
This setting will take less time for each frame to register. You need to set it to around 5% when there's less stars in the frame otherwise the frames won't register properly.
You may already know what I've just outlined, but worth mentioning and there should be no problem stacking your images.
These are probably the most basic settings in DSS.

If everything has worked and the images stacked successfully, it's time to save your image.
Under processing - Save picture to file, select ( Embed adjustments in the saved image but do not apply them ). Save as 16 bit tiff, file name of your preference. Select to save to your desk top initially, that way the image won't get lost.
I prefer this setting as DSS is a little slow to do anything else but the stacking procedure, you can do that in Photo Shop are what ever processing program you are using.

Note this is the way I do it, there are many others, but this way works!

But as I said earlier, you need to put the time in on the PC, and read any help files available and experiment and it will get better.:)
If you do have more problems, PM me and I'll try and help.

Cheers,

Justin.

[raymo]

Thank you Kevin,Fred,Justin, and anyone else who might offer advice and
help. I have in fact been trying to find out about DSLR image processing.
I got Michael Covington's DSLR Astrophotography, and read it carefully.
I use Registax successfully for the planets. I do fairly basic image
manipulation on PS. Neatimage works quite well for me. I have done a
bit of JPEG stacking in DSS. BUT, when I read up on processing proper
I am overwhelmed by darks, lights, biases, binning, Gaussian, Bayer
Matrices, curves, gradients, median, unsharp masking, luminance, hue,
saturation, RBG, aligning, stacking, calibration, subs, wavelets, Denoise, brightness, contrast, resizing, signal to noise ratio, layers, TIFF 16 & 32,
JPEG, Cr2, raw, rar, and the list goes on. I have printed out quite a lot
of instructions for using the aforementioned software, and also used
the help section where available. My grandson who is a heavy duty
comp geek would romp through this stuff, but I find it daunting.
Thanks again; I hope I didn't bore you all to death. Now I must go and
try out your advice.
raymo