What Image Processing Software do you use

[JohnH]

And Why? I have PS Elements 2 (came with the cameras and I love it) the Canon utilites (likewise), Registax 3 (I hate it but its free), Iris (cannot figure it out but its free), autostitch (great software), Mead AutostarSuite (came with the LPI but I have not tried the image processing module), PixInsight LE (have not played with it yet). I have aslo tried the demos of Registars (loved it), Maxim DL (Good), Images Plus (also good) and K3CCDTools. I am at the point where I want to spend some $$$ to get faster at this vital part of our hobby, mostly I will be wanting to work with Canon RAWs, occasional LPI work - consensus seems to be K3CCDtools for that.

So should I persist with IRIS, go for IP or Maxim or something else? Oh and BTW does Elements 3 handle 16 bit TIFFs or RAWs?

[davidpretorius]

i am growing to love Iris (took a lot of hours though!!!), but image plus sounds the best going around. I have subscribed to iris groups and imageplus and the image plus is very very active.

It ends up being for me, iris to capture, ppmcentre, registax and then back into iris and final words and comments in photoshop

[Striker]

I just got Images plus.....it has already improved my previous images done with Photoshop CS.....nothing against photoshop....you can get close to the same results with photoshop...just imagesplus makes it easier.

I will continue using Imagesplus 2.5 with Photoshop CS 2 and Photodeluxe 4.

[janoskiss]

Gimp, Cinepaint, and the bread-and-butter image processing toolkit, ImageMagick.

[asimov]

Micrografax picture publisher # 8. Software that came with my scanner. Does a lot of stuff like splits the RBG channels etc etc.

[sheeny]

I have just recently moved to Photoshop CS2 from Photoshop 7. The photomerge in CS2 is excellent for assembling mosaics (particularly from long lenses / scopes).

I do have registax and play with it a bit, but I'm far from knowing what I'm doing with it. I know what it's supposed to do, but working with just a few images at a time, I am yet to achieve what I expect it does... I think I just need to get with someone who knows what they are doing with it so I can learn a few things...

I also regularly use Arcsoft Panorama Maker. I take a lot of panoramic landscapes (and also industrial photos) and it does an excellent job even with wide angle lenses. It has a few limitations (e.g it won't even work with images outside certain proportions but if you need to assemble a mosaic it is possible by planning the sequence you join you images. For less than AUD$40 for a registered copy, I can't recommend it highly enough for panoramas, and it might make a viable low cost alternative to other software for assembling mosaics (if you are patient enough).

Al.

PS. I have also used Panavue as a trial version. It is more tolerant of conical distortion errors than Panoramam Maker, but produces some odd shaped images. I think it maintains angular position well so for astro work would be fine if you aren't worried about necessarily having a rectangular image when you're finished...;)

[iceman]

Have you tried autostitch? It's the best mosaic/panorama program i've seen.. though i've only used a couple.

[ving]

I have PSP vers 8, 9, and 10 currently. I use these for most pics.

[bird]

Image capture: Linux + Coriander (firewire) or Qastrocam (ToUCam)
Processing: ppmcentre (Linux/Windows), registax, Astra Image, The Gimp.

regards, Bird