Oh .... my gawd!! ... Noooooo!! ...

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by ghsmith45

This is getting ridiculous--how quickly can I do something? Maybe we should look at the end result--is it slower/quicker but does it/does it not end up with something better? As for quicker, certainly if you've recorded an action in PS you can do things quickly. But PI can also record actions and then you can also do things quickly. Big whoop!
I really get annoyed when people take a 5 minute look at PI then start knocking it when they have no idea of how to use it or no idea of its ability to improve their processing.
Geoff

I don't think considering speed of workflow is ridiculous at all Geoff! David's point was that PI can avoid blown out stars using masks and my point was I already do that effectively and quickly in PS. Fair enough?

I'm not precious about PS and I'm not an evangelist - it's just that I've used it for 18 years and 7 of that for deep space processing. I dare say my imaging results are reasonably good and a testament to the effectiveness of PS. However, I'm now exploring PI for what it can do better than PS (and I've already identified 2 things). Fast workflow will be part of the "better" equation if there's not much in it from an effectiveness / quality standpoint - does that make sense?.

I'm interested in knowing how you record macros / actions in PI and what the limitations are (if any) - any advice? Can you distrubute / share PI "Actions"?

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

I'm interested in knowing how you record macros / actions in PI and what the limitations are (if any) - any advice? Can you distrubute / share PI "Actions"?

You can create process icons (which remember all the parameter settings for an instance of a process) and you can group a sequence of processes in a process container. These can be saved to a file and restored or shared. Unfortunately, I'm not terribly familiar with PS actions so I can't comment on how they compare.

To do anything more sophisticated in PI you need to write a script. These are currently written in Javascript (some work has been done on Python but it's not ready for prime time.) Scripts are very powerful but would be a challenge for the non-programmer.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

I'm interested in knowing how you record macros / actions in PI and what the limitations are (if any) - any advice? Can you distrubute / share PI "Actions"?

A bit dated, but this link gives the general idea
http://pixinsight.com/doc/legacy/LE/...ess_icons.html

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

I don't think considering speed of workflow is ridiculous at all Geoff! David's point was that PI can avoid blown out stars using masks and my point was I already do that effectively and quickly in PS. Fair enough?

Yep. Fair enough.

[rogerg (Roger)]

Oh, a thread about PI usability (or lack there of), how could I not chip in my 2c worth! sorry for all those who have heard my rants before!

PI is not well designed with respect to UI/usability. Flat out. That's it. No two ways about it. The icons (circles, triangles, squares !??!), the buttons, the tool names, the lack of any direction.

Sure, people persevere and learn how to use it, you can do that for just about anything, but that does not make it user friendly or intuitive.

If "Dust & Speckles" is not considered intuitive in PS then how is a name like "Linear Fit" intuitive? or even "Dynamic Background Extraction" - shouldn't that be "Flatten Image Background" if it was meant to be more intuitive than "Dust & Speckles" ?

Speed - CCDStack wins every time. Easy to preview sigma clipping, less clicks, more obvious process, preview quick and easy.

I have come to use PI for more and more as I slowly chisel away at understanding how it works, and now usually use it for the following on DSLR RAW files:
- DBE
- Calibration
- Registration
- Combining/stacking
... it's now my choice for these when dealing with DSLR images.
Eventually I will likely come to use it more, as it is obviously very powerful.

Wouldn't step near it with a .FIT from my ST8 though, I've got better things to do with the time I save by using CCDStack + PS.

We're lucky to have the variety and luxury of choice so we can all choose what works best for us

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by rogerg

Oh, a thread about PI usability (or lack there of), how could I not chip in my 2c worth! sorry for all those who have heard my rants before!

PI is not well designed with respect to UI/usability. Flat out. That's it. No two ways about it. The icons (circles, triangles, squares !??!), the buttons, the tool names, the lack of any direction.

Sure, people persevere and learn how to use it, you can do that for just about anything, but that does not make it user friendly or intuitive.

If "Dust & Speckles" is not considered intuitive in PS then how is a name like "Linear Fit" intuitive? or even "Dynamic Background Extraction" - shouldn't that be "Flatten Image Background" if it was meant to be more intuitive than "Dust & Speckles" ?

Speed - CCDStack wins every time. Easy to preview sigma clipping, less clicks, more obvious process, preview quick and easy.

I have come to use PI for more and more as I slowly chisel away at understanding how it works, and now usually use it for the following on DSLR RAW files:
- DBE
- Calibration
- Registration
- Combining/stacking
... it's now my choice for these when dealing with DSLR images.
Eventually I will likely come to use it more, as it is obviously very powerful.

Wouldn't step near it with a .FIT from my ST8 though, I've got better things to do with the time I save by using CCDStack + PS.

We're lucky to have the variety and luxury of choice so we can all choose what works best for us

+1 This is exactly how I feel about it too. In the industry they'd say it's been designed by a programmer.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

+1 This is exactly how I feel about it too. In the industry they'd say it's been designed by a programmer.

Worse than that... it was designed by programmers who are also astronomers

The UI is weird largely because they made the design choice to support multiple platforms and hence chose an OS independent GUI toolkit. I think that was a smart choice. It scares off a subset of users but it also widens the potential user base substantially.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and for some people PI is elegant and not at all difficult to understand. The process names make perfect and logical sense (and typically link to published algorithms in the astronomical literature.) I took to it like a duck to water. However, I realize that not everybody is like me or has a comp sci/maths/imaging background (probably just as well.) I can also understand why some people dislike the unusual GUI, the plethora of parameters, the lack of an obvious workflow, etc. and that's OK with me.

Cheers,
Rick.

[lazjen (Chris)]

I can only compare to DSS+PS for processing, but I find PI quite good for my current level of experience. It's easy to see how you're progressing on an image at any point and with the history it's easy to back track for another workflow attempt or branch off for something completely different.

I also found the gui quite acceptable (much better than PS), but I'm also more Linux focused than most people.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by RickS

Worse than that... it was designed by programmers who are also astronomers

You fit in the ultra geek group then. We're common mortals and simply talking about usability here. Just very basic 'high level' interaction. If cars worked like PI only mechanics would be driving them. Maybe they should make a library of prebuilt groups of processes and name then in plain English, hell I'd even settle for Spanish. This way it would get a foot in the door for a lot of people, not in the mouth

[RickS (Rick)]

We have a wide spectrum of opinions which is cool. No point in getting bent out of shape because someone else doesn't like our favourite processing tool, brand of PC or smartphone, or choice of imaginary friend

Can we go back to arguing the relative merits of refractors, newtonians and catadioptrics now?

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by RickS

Can we go back to arguing the relative merits of refractors, newtonians and catadioptrics now?

Or perhaps freds atroshis speling
Geoff

[Rod771 (Rod)]

Originally Posted by RickS

No point in getting bent out of shape because someone else doesn't like our favourite processing tool, brand of PC or smartphone, or choice of imaginary friend

Hey,hey, hey!!! My imaginary friends chose me, alright!

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Rod771

Hey,hey, hey!!! My imaginary friends chose me, alright!

You had better listen to that one, Rod! Sounds like a keeper

[andyc (Andy)]

Just took the plunge myself last week! I used the trial for a while, and Harry's videos (see link below) are brilliant, at least while you're not accidentally imagining Harry's dulcet tones are out of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels . But maybe then you just concentrate more on what he's teaching you...

So far, some good, some bad, some ugly with PI, it's quite a learning process even for someone quite familiar with image processing and programming!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I'd love to have a shoot out with the two programs (PI and PS) using the same data set. Just to see what everyone can pull out of it.

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by RickS

1

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and for some people PI is elegant and not at all difficult to understand. The process names make perfect and logical sense (and typically link to published algorithms in the astronomical literature.) I took to it like a duck to water. However, I realize that not everybody is like me or has a comp sci/maths/imaging background (probably just as well.) I can also understand why some people dislike the unusual GUI, the plethora of parameters, the lack of an obvious workflow, etc. and that's OK with me.

Cheers,
Rick.

I feel much the same way. When I got the trial version a few years back I was so fascinated by PI that I spent every available moment exploring it--just couldn't leave it alone. Maybe having a strong maths background had something to do with it. I got the commercial version long before the trial period was up.
Geoff

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

You fit in the ultra geek group then. We're common mortals and simply talking about usability here. J.... If cars worked like PI only mechanics would be driving them.

Agree it's mostly about useability ... and I would NOT want to own that car! But I don't want to ignore what PI does well - in my case gradient removal and star registration (to start with)

PI vs PS is like a political discussion - 5 parts dogma, 4 parts emotion and 1 part logic & common sense!

I've decided to explore and use elements of PI to augment my mostly PS based processing. No dogma, no emotion, just common sense I'll continue to joke about PI's UI and UX though!

[RickS (Rick)]

It's not just about usability. It's also about power and expressiveness. Some people want a simple and easy workflow. Some people want control over all the parameters, the ability to generate masks programmatically, etc. The same UI is never going to satisfy both groups.

Incidentally, I'd put PS in the category of software designed for geeks. It's just that people have learned to live with it (or moved to Lightroom.)

Cheers,
Rick.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by RickS

It's not just about usability. It's also about power and expressiveness. Some people want a simple and easy workflow. Some people want control over all the parameters, the ability to generate masks programmatically, etc. The same UI is never going to satisfy both groups.

Incidentally, I'd put PS in the category of software designed for geeks. It's just that people have learned to live with it (or moved to Lightroom.)

Cheers,
Rick.

Agreed you can really push the envelope with PI and that's important. Having said that a software needs various levels of control. A good visual interface and a powerful underlying scripting engine. But I still like to have a visual approach to what I'm doing with near realtime feedback.

Let's take a concrete example.

Adobe Lighroom has a terrific way of balancing colors. The temperature slider in combination with the tint slider will give you an immediate feedback both in the viewport and histogram. This is a visual feedback and it's very intuitive. I don't even care about what it does under the hood. I can move those two until I see the colors I like. Period.

On the other end if you take CCD Stack, it does a very good job at sampling a dark area in your channels and with a bit of INT mode and pixelmath you can pretty much nail your colors.

Both have different approach. Both effective. One is visual, the other goes by the numbers.

In PI there is a lot of choices of parameters but not much feedback in the interface. Photoshop is more visual. A visual interface suits me better. I like to see things in real time by interacting with basic settings. Keeping it simple. Too much choice is a little confusing and overwhelming.

I totally understand that the math inclined people will appreciate the elegance in the naming and functionality of all the underlying PI processes but I like pretty colors better than numbers. Same way I do astro photos. I like shapes and colors. I like listening to others explaining sometimes what we see but to me imaging is like painting. Pretty colors and relaxing.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

In PI there is a lot of choices of parameters but not much feedback in the interface.

Many processes support a real-time preview which does exactly what you're talking about. For those that don't you can create a preview, apply a process and then blink compare the result. You can even make multiple copies of the preview to test different parameters. It's a bit more effort but it's very powerful.

Originally Posted by multiweb

but to me imaging is like painting. Pretty colors and relaxing.

You're obviously not a member of the PI target audience, Marc. If they hear you talking about painting they'll revoke your license

I do completely get your point. I just don't think it's a problem. Some people grok PI and some don't. For those that don't there are plenty of other options. Many of them, unlike PI, even have written documentation!

Cheers,
Rick.