I have never used Photoshop but I am curious about making mosaics and masks etc
Would photoshop elements have these and other useful astro functions or would I have to buy the whole expensive package?
Graham
Hi Graham.
Personally i think you are better off with the whole Photoshop and yes the cost can hurt the pocket, but in saying that is is a great bit of software and you may just use it not just for astro stuff.
I am not sure PSE is insuffcient - IIRC the real limitation is that it only allows you to work in 8 bit mode for certain tasks. You can certainly experiment with layering, masks, mosaics etc etc. As for useful astro functions neither full PS not PSE has them (eg RGB or LRGB processing, stacking, calibration. deconvolution etc) for that you need another package or packages. You could even consider GIMP as an alternate which is shareware if money is tight.
South Graham,
Only from looking at tutorials and other posts on IIS, it seems ( to me) that PS elements can only do basic stuff for AP. I have tried to process a few bits and pieces ( like the Orion neb) and find that certain processing bits are missing ( according to tutorials etc).
I am not a whiz at AP ( not even close) but from reading stuff, the proper PS ( cs5-and other AP suites etc) are the go or go GIMP.
I haven't found too many GIMP tuts on AP processing - but I haven't looked to hard.
Try the trial version of CS5, and if you are a student you can get it a lot cheaper.
BTW nice recent pic of M42 )
Bartman
