Processing RAW's using IRIS

[iceman]

So.. who can help me with a digital processing workflow using IRIS?

I've installed the latest version..

First thing.. if I open up my RAW file, it's black and white. Why? How do I get it to be colour?

Then what?

Should I pre-process my RAW's using my other RAW tool (RawShooterPremium) first, and then use the TIF's in IRIS?

What's the best method for stacking files?

Any step by step tutorials on how to process deep sky/starfield images using IRIS?

Thanks

[h0ughy]

I think you need to speak to Tornado33 and Photoncollector, they seem to be the iris experts?

[gbeal]

Good question, so keep the answer out there too please Mike. I started way back ago with Iris, but just found it too hard. I use K3 for that reason alone, but there is a heap of great stuff in Iris, if you can work out how to get it out. Even auto-guiding.
Gary

[iceman]

I've been playing around this morning and reading some tutorials on the IRIS site. I'm not really confident of what i'm doing, but I'm pressing buttons and typing commands and stuff is happening.

I'm comparing the result to a manually stacked and processed result using Photoshop alone. IRIS is winning so far. Will post results soon.

[sheeny]

Strictly speaking this post won't directly address you question Mike, but it might help to get to know IRIS...

I found the Sloan Digital Sky Survey site some time ago and they have a series of Basic and Advanced Projects on there. The Basic ones look like they might be aimed a school kids, and the Advanced ones at enthusiasts and uni students. One of the Advanced Projects is Image Processing - and they use IRIS.

I started working through this some time ago, but I haven't kept it up. The tutorial is for an older version of IRIS, but it's not too hard to work out how to adapt to the new version.

http://cas.sdss.org/dr5/en/

From the above page, under "Science Projects" select "Advanced". One the next page you'll see a project on "Image Processing".

While it doesn't directly answer your question about RAWs, the project is quite well written to step you through getting used to IRIS. Once you get past the initial steep learning curve, it may become obvious:shrug:.

Al.

[middy]

I can give you the sequence of commands that I use. My sequence is made up from various tutorials I found on the net.

Some notes before I start:
- I can't comment on RAWs, my camera only does JPG.
- I don't apply dark frames as my camera does this automatically to each image and there is no way to turn it off to do my own darks. :(

First time you run Iris do File->Settings and set the 'Working Path' to a directory on a drive with a lot of space.

Lets say we have 10 images of the Southern Cross.

1. File->Select Files

2. Select your image files in Explorer and click Iris on bottom toolbar to bring it back up again. Drag and drop your files onto the Select Files window.

3. Type a generic name (e.g. 'sc' for Southern Cross) and click 'Create The Sequence'.

4. This writes files sc1 ... sc10 in the working directory.

5. Open a terminal window (Click on the button with the '>' symbols and horizontal lines)

6. Set stuff before we register the images:
'setspline 1'

7. Type 'coregister2 sc screg 10'
This registers the image files and writes the output to screg1 ... screg10
(10 is the number of images you have)

8. 'add_norm screg 10'

9. When finished click the 'Auto' button in the Threshold window.
(The colours will look weird, this is normal. Do not panic yet :-)

10. Select the area of the image you wish to stack by clicking in the image for a lower left point and an upper right point. (The coords you have click appear in the Output window).

11. Now crop the area from the registered images with:
'window2 screg scregcrop ll_x ll_y ur_x ur_y 10'
where ll_x is the x coord of the lower left point,
ll_y the lower left y coord etc etc.

12. Remove the offset from the images with:
'noffset2 scregcrop scregcropnorm 0 10'

13. Now we can stack with:
'composit scregcropnorm 3 1 1 10'

14. When finished type 'stat'

15. Look for the negative numbers in the output window (one for each colour R, G & B). We need to offset the image by the most negative number so there are no negatives involved. (This has to do with why the colours are weird).

16. 'offset #' where # is the positive value of the largest negative value. (E.g. if the largest -ve number is -1457, then type 'offset 1457') The image will turn white most likely (Still do not panic)

This is where I depart from Iris because I can't get the hang of stretching and adjusting curves in Iris. From here I go back to Registax to stretch the image.

17. File->Save and save the resulting image to a TIFF file 'sc.tif'

18. Registax won't like the resulting TIFF file it needs to be 16 bit, so I load in into Irfanview and resave to 'sc_16bit.tif' which converts it to 16 bit.

19 I then stretch and adjust as normal in Registax.

That is the procedure I use from the top of my head. It should be enough to at least get you started and get used to Iris.

Go here for all the tutorials you can poke a stick at. It also has a reference manual of all the commands:

http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm#tutorial

Sorry I couldn't go into more detail but I need to start some work now ;)

Use the reference manual on the above site to read up on the commands I have listed here. Feel free to ask questions if I haven't explained anything clearly. Good luck with it. It really is an excellent program and I wish I had more time to sit down and look at all the other features it has.

[middy]

Just found the site where I got the bulk of my method from:

http://www.saratogaskies.com/articles/cookbook/index.html

I don't do all the flats, darks and lights stuff, so I start at the point 3/4 of the way down from the section titled 'Register'.

[Doug]

edit:: mistake withdrawn
Doug

[seeker372011]

Mike :

just follow Jim Solomon's work flow-it has been linked above by middy-the new version of his cookbook

it works, I have been following his steps for years