“His Majesty” Pixinsight

[Stephane]

Hi all,

I am new to the Astrophotography world. Will be purchasing a rig in the coming months and am taking time to learn as much as I can before starting. I hear there is much processing software such as photoshop, Gimp, and Pixinsight.

I often read expressions such as “His Majesty” Pixinsight, insinuating a clear superiority over other processing software.

Do many of you use Pixinsight? Is it worth the money? In other words: can the same results be achieved on free software such as Gimp? If I go with Pixinsight, any recommended tutorials? (I hear the learning curve is quite steep). I am currently leaning towards purchasing Pixinsight once I get my rig and free trial expires, as I hear nothing but praise about it.

Many thanks for your comments :thumbsup:
Stéphane

[AdamJL]

I just purchased it.

For what it’s worth, I have the following on my editing PC and have used them all or am learning them:
Photoshop CC (been using Photoshop since at least 2004)
StarTools (started using last year)
PixInsight (started using yesterday!
SiriL (used for about a month or two)

Photoshop is, IMO, the easiest to come to grips with. Not because I’ve been using it for years but the interface follows more common conventions in software design. For example, with PixInsight, you will be confronted with sub windows in their corners that have triangles, squares, circles, ticks and crosses. Some of them you click, others you drag onto your image. Which one do you select? Why? It’s not straight forward at all. It will take learning before their way of doing things makes sense (have a look at an early Dylan Odonnel tutorial on PI to see what I mean. He says the same things I do… PI’s user interface is a mess)

StarTools is ridiculously powerful but I don’t find it flexible. Ivo’s very good software is great if you are a pure data scientist wishing to show an image that’s purely technically correct, but hard to understand if you like to push the boundaries.
There also isn’t much support on YouTube for the module and to this day I still don’t understand things like the Wipe Module fully

Siril is a great start if you want to go down the path of PI later as it’s similar in many ways but more basic in the UI (and IMO easier to understand). It follows similar workflows to PI. I quite like Siril

Creating star masks in PI and StarTools is a bit of a pain, probably more so in StarTools which I can never get right all of the time (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, even with manual editing)
That said, deconvolution is a lot easier in StarTools than PixInsight

A lot of this is more because I’m relatively new to Astro and the dedicated software is it what I’m used to. I have four pieces of software because I’m going to try them all.

What I would recommend at least is having PS installed. Even if you use Photoshop as the “finisher” for your workflow, it’s still very impressive.

Try out each of the others using this trial versions first to see which one you want. Siril is free so don’t worry about the trial for that.

Deep Sky Stacker is also more than enough to stack your images too. Not sure what the benefit is that PI provides with their solution, I haven’t seen a difference, it’s just more complex to execute

Take all of this with a grain of salt… just my $0.02

:)

[Startrek]

I’ve exclusively used Startools for 4 years and find no issues at all in processing
Im absolutely in awe at its ability to mitigate noise from ordinary data and uncover and accentuate hidden detail you didn’t realise you had in your images
Suitable for beginner to advanced , very intuitive
Not going anywhere else in the near future
It’s well supported and Ivo Jager the developer is very accomodating
No ongoing fees or subscriptions either like other software
My 2 cents .......
Cheers
Martin

[Nikolas]

I use Astropixel Processor for stacking, Channel separation of dual band filters, colour Recombination under various ways the menu allows for 10 different variations of recombination.
I make star masks in Photoshop using the new plugin Star exterminator which will remove stars then in a separate layer you can subtract the nebulosity to create a star mask which you can then recombine using the colour dodge layer to re-add the stars after working on the starless image.
I have dabbled in Pixinsight but found it hurt my brain too much.
Siril shows some promise but as for startools, unless you have a decent computer it runs like a slug, not sure about the latest versions but it was way too slow for my mac.
Use whatever you feel comfortable, there is not one size fits all solution.

[Stephane]

Thanks guys! Startools seems quite popular and more affordable. I’d welcome more comments though. Thanks so much.

Cheers,
Stéphane

[multiweb]

Regardless of the program you use the first thing you'll need to learn is acquiring good raw data then calibrating it, rejecting and stacking. CCD Stack, DSS, MAXIM DL, PixInsight are good programs to learn how to do that.

Once you have this down pat then you can move onto the processing part. PixInsight and Startools are good processing programs because they can work on RAW linear files. Photoshop is not.

Finally when you want to present your picture and post process it, tweak colors, cropping and framing then Photoshop is the program you want to use as it's the easiest and most user friendly for that later stage.

So they all have their place.

[AdamJL]

Give the trials a go first, of everything before you buy :)

[LewisM]

I bought PixInsight about 6 years ago. It's daunting, but has improved a LOT in regards to user friendliness. It took me about 2 years to have a clue what is going on and to create an effective work flow.

Lots of other programmes that do the same and are easier to use, but PI algorithms are particularly good .

[xelasnave]

My vote is for DSS, Startools and Photoshop.
Pixinsight I think appeals to folk because it is damn difficult to learn and to use it suggests you are clever..to me it smacks of elitism..unkind? Unfair? Maybe but that is my opinion and others will certainly disagree.if you find joy in playing with something that seems to find the most difficult way to do its job go for Pixinsight ...The time it takes to learn it seems over the top...is it worth the money..in my view no way simply because it is un necessarily complicated...I am sure the developers could do much better but choose to leave it so to attract folk who think by mastering it it is some sort of badge of honour...further it is expensive because it is so complex it seems.
I would love to see a comparison between Startools snd Pixinsight both in final image and time to produce it. Photoshop I use to play a little with the image from Startools ..nothing major.
Alex

[multiweb]

They are two very different beasts. PixInsight can pick up a file at any stage of the processing flow. Startools is a sequential flow like CCD Stack but with the advantage it tracks the changes you're doing internally and can re apply them in the proper order when you stop tracking. So it's a non destructive flow. A bit like you have layers in Photoshop.

In PixInsight you can save processes on your desktop and save the whole project along with the photos. So it's just a matter of recalling a project and input new subs.

Startools saves a txt file called Startools.log that records every step from opening the file until saving the final. So again you can use that to apply the same processing flow to a new image.

In term of time spent processing they're about the same once you're used to both.

Another good thing about Startools is you can provide the log to another user with the original raw file and he'll be able to retrace every single step and get the exact same result. Even with a new raw file.

[Startrek]

In Startools v1.7 the Restore tab ( no need to save anything) provides 4 presets and allows you to go back to the Linear image , Linear Stretched image , Wiped image or Wiped Deconvolve image
Simply brilliant !!
Gives you so much flexibility
Cheers
Martin

[Stephane]

Awesome, thanks everyone. I will go with the startools free trial and possible purchase after. It’s also much cheaper than Pixinsight. Will check out some tutorials and practice on other people’s data.

Cheers,
Stéphane

[xelasnave]

Just to add to what Martin said about Startools ability to get rid of noise ...for various reasons I was taking short subs, 30 to 60 seconds, with my zwo 1600 mono and using gain up to 350 , which is very wrong apparently because there is so much noise, and there is heaps, but Startools makes it better...
When you first use it for most steps you do not need to adjust anything...so it can feel as if you are not doing anything.... but the program is...
Good luck..just buy it..I did not get far with the trial version but when I purchased I became more interested cause of the huge investment:D
Alex

[xelasnave]

Thank you Marc your input is always valuable to me.
Alex

[Stephane]

Martin, that’s great information. Studying other log files will boost me up the learning curve.

When starting off, I don’t know how you waited 8 months to start imaging. I can’t wait to get started. Need to be patient though and get my rig right. I’ve also been studying those files you sent me which have been a great help. Thanks again.

[Startrek]

Stephane,


You may have replied to Marc instead of me " Martin "



In any case , always glad to help


When I mentioned it took me 8 months to buy my first telescope, I was only into visual astronomy to start off my journey


Astrophotography came later after I took some pictures of the moon with my Iphone 6 into an eye piece using my 10" dob, then I was hooked !!!


Cheers
Martin

[Stephane]

Woops, sorry for the mix up Martin & Marc.

I found some older forum posts comparing Pixinsight & Startools which was also useful. I’ll study Startools in the near future. I want to first get the basics right of mount & imaging setup. I’ll be using Stellarium as my planetarium connected via ASCOM to the mount. Some guy on YouTube also called Martin (Martin’s Astrophotography) made a couple of great videos on polar & star aligning via Stellarium.

Cheers,
Stéphane

[Startrek]

Just remember Stellarium on its own is limited in relation to controlling the mount , great for navigation when doing visual etc.. but you really need EQMOD with Stellarium to be able to perform super accurate Goto by creating a pointing model across the sky with Sync commands. ( I sent you the procedures for Stellarium and EQMOD) The next step beyond this would be plate solving which is another leaning curve via your preferred capture software
I like EQMOD for it’s simplicity and accuracy. The more you use it the quicker it becomes finding and centering objects

Cheers
Martin

[gregbradley]

There are mainly 2 camps - PI and Photoshop.

Photoshop is more user friendly, has an interface that is somewhat natively intuitive and has loads of resources and plug ins. But for Astro you need a 2nd program as Photoshop does not do dark, flats, bias and aligning your images. CCDstack does that then you save as a tiff file then open in photoshop to finish it off.

Subscription based payments for Photoshop suck also because most of the advancements in Photoshop are not really useful for astro. Occasionally they improve a tool you are already using but for the most part Photoshop has not advanced for astro work since Photoshop CS6 of about 10 yrs ago.

Startools is a good program to learn. Its also a dedicated to astro software.

PI is a wall of confusion and meaningless big words that are supposed to strike awe in you of the genius of the programmers who can't communicate very well.

These days a good interface is just as important if not more so, than the functionality of the program. PI just isn't friendly even if it has some good tools.

But if your tolerance of pain and confusion is high then give it a go I am sure the final results would be worth it.

Adam Block has done some video tutorials for all these programs and he is awesome and a good communicator.

I think I will get is PI tutorials and get on top of PI finally.

Greg.

[xelasnave]

Heck being bedridden either in or out of hospital for now six months is not easy to take and having some nice gear just sitting there that you can't physically use makes it worse... plus I think all up it has been at least a year out of the game...and unfortunately I am so damn weak I am starting to wonder if I will ever do it again.

The next week will tell as I plan going to the observatory every day and either get it together or die trying.

Alex

[Addos]

the learning curve in pix is not understated, and i resisted for a while based on that, and its cost. if youre interested in learning it Adam Block, Shaun (Visibledark), Jon Rista and Mark Shelley have published various guides, youtube videos explaining the various processes and their proper sequencing. Adam, Jon and Mark have also all contributed to the program's development over the years, so you can trust their guidance.

that said, i started using it in august. 3 months later, and ive completely replaced photoshop with it. once learned, its incredibly powerful and constantly being updated. its utility is also not understated.

i still do preprocessing in dss. that remains much less time instensive in terms of setup and processing time, and i dont observe significant differences in output from pix.

vote here is - worth it.

[Stephane]

Thanks Adam, I’ve downloaded the trial version of PI and am actually really enjoying the learning curve. I have some untracked milkyway shots I took a couple of months ago which I’ve been practicing my processing on, as well as some raw subs from Nico Carver. There are so many great YouTube videos out there with well-explained workflows.

Once the trial runs out, I will try out Startools and give that a fair go. Hopefully by then I can make an informed decision.

So far, I love PI and have only scratched its surface. I will however keep an open mind until I have given Startools a shot.

Many thanks,
Stéphane