Wrote my first PixInsight script

[RickS]

I just released my first PI script. It's called ColorMask (I figured that most PI users expect US spelling) and is intended to simplify colour processing. It only takes a few fairly simple steps to go from Before:

http://rickstevenson.smugmug.com/photos/i-dhJmdZC/0/O/i-dhJmdZC.jpg

to After:

http://rickstevenson.smugmug.com/photos/i-DWsWZmJ/0/O/i-DWsWZmJ.jpg

If you're a PI user interested in more details, I posted the script and the processing steps for this example at the PI forum: http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=7751.0

It was good fun to exercise my programming muscles after many years in management ;)

Cheers,
Rick.

[RickS]

Hmmm... I have no idea why the images displayed in the preview but only show as links in the final post. Attaching them here instead...

[niharika]

Nice one Rick :), will be trying it out over next few days for sure.

[RickS]

I hope you find it useful. Let me know if you have any feedback.

[SimmoW]

No purple stars! Well done Rick, bookmarked for when I eventually try NB..

[RickS]

Thanks, Simon. It sorts out the magenta curse pretty well.

[troypiggo]

Awesome!

[RickS]

Thanks, Troy. I have to say I'm not a huge fan of JavaScript. Hopefully, they'll finish Python support soon.

[DavidTrap]

Looks great. I'll do some processing one day!

DT

[DavidTrap]

Any news on the PI workshop for 2015?

[RickS]

Vicent is still keen but it might be a little later in the year. He is free at Easter time but I told him that probably wouldn't work too well... His last suggestion was May.

[RickS]

You'll have to stop collecting data and neglecting it, David :D

[ozstronomer]

Nice work Rick,

Does this only work with Narrow Band images?

Geoff

[DavidTrap]

Phew - Feb was looking a bit busy for me!

DT

[lazjen]

Nice work, I'll have to give this a spin sometime.

[codemonkey]

Nice work Rick! Good to see another coder here too.



I develop web apps, and my 9-5 is entirely JS these days. Well, actually, CoffeeScript (not my decision--I wouldn't have chosen to use it, but now that I am, it does make JS feel a tiny bit less ugly). We use Angular + a touch of Node. I've never been a big fan of JS either, but you gotta pay the bills.

I like python as a language, but I can't get past __init__.py. Small thing, but it makes me feel a little dirty inside.

I've been enjoying playing around with Java lately, which I hadn't done since uni.

[RickS]

Ta, Geoff. No, it will work with any colour image. You can use the masks to create more sophisticated ones too. As an example, PixelMath star_mask*blue_mask would give you a mask targeting blue stars.



Let me know if you have any feedback, Chris.



I have a system & embedded programming background, Lee. C was about as high level as I used to go on a regular basis :) The lads at work are looking at new scripting languages and seem quite excited by Lua.

Cheers,
Rick.

[RobF]

Glad to hear you've got it out Rick.
Have the PI boys discussed making it part of future distributions? (I'll have to get back on the PI forums. Expect you've outlined progress there?).

Thanks for putting this up. NB is a tall slippery mountain and I've never been able to get anywhere near the beautiful hues in your images posted in past abortive attempts in PI, and it seems to be getting progressively harder to go back into PS nowadays.

[RickS]

Rob,

I only just posted it to the PI Forum last night so not much feedback yet apart from a couple of folks who said they'd try it. Some of my SRO colleagues are also giving it a whirl. I'd like to think it is useful enough to include in the PI distribution but I guess we'll see.

PI already has some powerful tools for playing with colour but they are tricky to use. Being able to isolate colour ranges and work on them separately makes it a lot simpler, IMHO. The preset buttons for individual colours are intended to select a range of colours roughly approximating what Selective Color in Photoshop does.

Cheers,
Rick.

[lazjen]

I had a go at using the script tonight on this: http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=1133497

In particular, I used the Magenta, Cyan and Yellow masks in a similar manner to your PI forum post. Although I messed around with the options while experimenting, I think the masks used had default values (or close) in the final image process.

Overall I think it's worked well and will be something I regularly use. In fact I may revisit some of my older images and see if using this script may help.

[RickS]

Thanks for the feedback, Chris :thumbsup:

[lazjen]

Suggestion: add the colour used to the mask name if a button was used?

[RickS]

Good idea! Thanks, Chris.