PixInsight

[Octane (Humayun)]

PixInsight for the mosaic modules is worth the price of entry alone.

H

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by RobF

I think that newbie guy here (Mike Sidinona?) gets half decent pics with astroart.....
Must be pretty decent too....

But imagine what he could do if he switched to PI. He might get decent pics instead of half decent ones.

Seriously though, this is a great program. They give you a 45 day free trial because they know you'll probably buy it long before the trial period is up.
Once you've had a bit of practice with the interface you'll find it easy, natural and very powerful. In fact, it's the Photoshop interface that will start to look strange and clunky after a bit of experience with PI. These days I acquire the image in Maxim, then use PI for everything else. I never have to go to Photoshop.
Geoff

[hotspur (Chris)]

A good read,I'm currently looking at all options for APP programs.I've just bought a new computer-it is third geni7 with 6 GB RAM (can get it up to 8) with a 2 GB dedicated Nvidea graphics card-would this be enough grunt to make this PI work?

Obviously running windows7,seems like other OS are better for PI.

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Have tried it but keep getting "out of memory" errors. I'm using a laptop with 32-bit XP with 2GB of RAM. After reading the recommended specs, I will struggle with my laptop so will stick with PS for all my processing needs.

[DavidTrap (David)]

Originally Posted by hotspur

A good read,I'm currently looking at all options for APP programs.I've just bought a new computer-it is third geni7 with 6 GB RAM (can get it up to 8) with a 2 GB dedicated Nvidea graphics card-would this be enough grunt to make this PI work?

Obviously running windows7,seems like other OS are better for PI.

Your new computer would be fine for PI, but it's documentation leaves a lot to be desired.

I have no problems with Win 7.

DT

[gregbradley]

Its great PI is an alternative to Photoshop. But I found the complex interface a putoff. Even after watching a tutorial on using it for mosaics it still did not seem to do as advertised.

I am sure it does with a lot of mucking around. I managed to get a 4 panel luminance mosaic to work after a lot of back and forth on tutorials etc. I could've gotten the same result from Photoshop CS4 in 2 minutes. Its a bit like driving a car with no car body and you can see everything doing its thing versus a slick well put together and matured piece of software in Photoshop.

Dynamic Background Extraction tool is the best thing about it. But that's not foolproof either and I can get a better result in Photoshop and every time. It requires a lot of user input to get a result.

But there is nothing PI can do you can't achieve in Photoshop which is also a big learning curve but an easier one. Also there are more users of Photoshop so its easier to get advice, 3rd party plug ins and tutorials on how to do things.

In a way you have a choice. You are unlikely to want to learn 2 ways of doing the same thing and will end up using one or the other.
They are too different from each other. Knowledge of Photoshop does not help you that much with PI.

Its like the writer of PI is one of these brilliant guys who sits in a room all day with a computer and does not interact with people much!
It shows in the lack of user friendliness. If it were a car it'd be a Porche but with no steering wheel, dash board or bonnet! And definitely no cup holders.

PI is a lot cheaper so that is a plus.

Horses for courses really.

Greg.

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Meh, GIMP gets the same sort of unfair comments. If you had used PI and never used PS, you'd think PS's interface was unintuitive. Human nature making you think that because you'd never used it before. It's just that most people have used PS first, so they think it's the standard by which all others must comply.

Granted, PS excels in the documentation, but it's user-base is so much massively more than PI, there are heaps more resources. And they have more dough/resources.

Give PI a chance, and you'll be rewarded as you would learning any other powerful software purpose-written for it's intended use.

One caveat is Win32 systems are no longer supported. They do work, but there are memory issues, particularly with integration. There are workarounds, but it's time you jumped into 64 bit anyway. Even MS isn't supporting 32 bit much more.

[mostschaedel (Gerald)]

In the past i used mainly ImagePlus, AstroArt and Photoshop for astronomical image processing.
I managed to get my pictures with these SW versions done.
However its a nightmare to learn 3 programs
because none of them can do the complete processing of astrophotos.
Especially Photoshop, which is not designed for astronomers and has NO
native astronomical functions built in.

So, i installed PI, learned it and now i have removed Photoshop and ImagePlus
from my computer.
PixInsight is the only COMPLETE software for astronomical image processing i know so far
after using/trying (Imageplus, Maxim, PS,CS, Astroart, CCDsoft, CCDStack etc...).
It does calibration and integration with much better results than Imageplus
and Astroart. Photoshop is unusable for good calibration and integration.

Deconvolution and Dynamic Background Extraction in PixInsight delivers much better
results than in Astroart and Photoshop does not have a native Dynamic Background Extraction.
Gradient Xterminator in PS can not compete with DBE in PI.

In addition the histogram and curves handling in PixInsight can be detailed with zooming the window
and zoom in on 16 bit level, in comparison the Photoshop histogram and curves handling is ridicolous.

Starmasks and object masks can be easy generated, manipulated and used in PixInsight.
All kind of blending modes (and much more complex) which are available
in PS can be done with the function PixelMath in PixInsight if really needed.

Automatic image registration with images from different cameras can be
done easily. We register and combine our QHY8 RGBs and STK11K Luminance
automatically together with PixInsight.
Pushing the images with HDR functions, Wavelets, Noise reduction, Color Calibration and many more functions which
are designed for astronomers are in PIxInsight.
And finally automatic annotation of the image with Names and Magnitude from the Messier, NGC, PGC, SDSS,
VdB etc. catalogues runs in seconds and is not available in any other SW.

There are much more other functions for astronomical processing in PixInsight
which makes it a complete Tool for the whole astro image processing workflow.

I also changed my image processing attitude. With PS in the past i did a lot of mask painting,
and manual correction until the image looked like i thought it should look like.
With PixInsight i use the data of the image for pushing an made more real details visible than before.
Means also astronomical image "painting" is gone since i use PixInsight for the whole image "processing"
workflow.

Gerald

[Poita (Peter)]

I'd have to agree with you Gerald, PI is simply the most powerful tool out there, but if you haven't grown up in the command-line/get-your-hands-dirty era then it takes some un-learning before it all clicks.

It takes time to master, but is well worth it. I've been using Photoshop professionally since it was released, was an Adobe train-the-trainer for a few years, and I can get better results in PI these days.

Photoshop is a great tool, but PI is worth the investment in time. I don't think it is a case of the writers not understanding how to make a friendly interface, it is more the case that by making it easier for beginners, you end up complicating, compromising and slowing the workflow down for experienced users. The interface in Photoshop and other programs like 3DS Max etc. can end up getting in the way once you get past a certain level. (There is an interesting book on this kind of argument by Neal Stephenson, much nicer to read on paper, but can be read online here: http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/C_R_Y..._I_C_O_N.shtml Jump straight to "Morlocks and Eloi at the Keyboard" if you don't want to read the whole thing. If that is two much to read, then just the last paragraph of that chapter, before "Metaphor Shear")


It would be interesting to post some raw data up and have people process it in their weapon of choice, post the results and their processes. We could all learn a lot from something like that.

[allan gould]

Originally Posted by Poita

It would be interesting to post some raw data up and have people process it in their weapon of choice, post the results and their processes. We could all learn a lot from something like that.

Now that would be a most interesting exercise if someone had a calibrated image with no processing other than dark and bias subtracted for processing. Settle theargument once and for all.

[White Rabbit]

I did that a while ago in the deep space forum. I put a an unedited tiff of M42. I think you even had a go Allan.

Speaking from someone that had no PS or PI experience before I bought PI, I have to say, if you follow Harry's tutorials you can get some pretty decent images even if you have no idea what your doing.

[whzzz28 (Nathan)]

Originally Posted by White Rabbit

Speaking from someone that had no PS or PI experience before I bought PI, I have to say, if you follow Harry's tutorials you can get some pretty decent images even if you have no idea what your doing.

This.
I downloaded the play data (LRGB) from Harry's site (i think? or was it the PI website...) and got some nice results from it!

It is however a big learning curve. Worse than using Maxim DL for the first time.

[originaltrilogy (Petr)]

Originally Posted by allan gould

Now that would be a most interesting exercise if someone had a calibrated image with no processing other than dark and bias subtracted for processing. Settle theargument once and for all.

Yes! Does someone have image like this? Would love to see software shootout!!

[mostschaedel (Gerald)]

There is a page for downloading calibrated images for processing tests.
http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/index_fits.htm
There are already processed examples on this page.
Melotte 15 or M63 would be a nice target?

Aloha
Gerald

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Great for macros too. I use it pretty much for everything.