Keith's Image Stacker

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Does anyone know of a good tutorial for Keith's Image Stacker. I import the images and define an alignment square BUT it never aligns, it simply stacks the images and I end up with a mess.

[leon]

Rob, can't say iv'e heard of Keith's Image Stacker.

Cheers Leon

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Originally Posted by leon

Rob, can't say iv'e heard of Keith's Image Stacker.

Cheers Leon

Leon it's a stacking program for the Mac.

Rob the only stuff I've seen are the documentation files that come with the program - maybe there's something of help in those.
Cheers
Doug

[fringe_dweller]

I played around with it once or twice, never again! it is singulary the most noob/non-geek unfriendly piece of software I have ever clapped eyes/clicked mouse on.
I am sure it works seen plenty of good examples - but there usually from physics/mathmatics professors and code jockeys, who like that sort of thing anyway - its very elitist imo - life's too short!?
altho the Lucy-Richardson and other? sharpening routines are highly thought of out there I believe.

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

I played around with it once or twice, never again! it is singulary the most noob/non-geek unfriendly piece of software I have ever clapped eyes/clicked mouse on.
I am sure it works seen plenty of good examples - but there usually from physics/mathmatics professors and code jockeys, who like that sort of thing anyway - its very elitist imo - life's too short!?
altho the Lucy-Richardson and other? sharpening routines are highly thought of out there I believe.

Agree - Unfortunately there's not a lot of stacking options for Mac, so Keith's the man for OSX-ers
Stacking 25 images as layers in PS takes too much time.
Anyway I'm playing devil's advocate cos I do all my stuff on my PC laptop!
If there was a better Mac program I might use it.
Cheers
Doug

[Lee]

You really do need to go through his tutorial.... it does work, and he explains in detail how to do it - but is very user-unfriendly and un-intuitive to say the least - I think it is actually quicker in the end to just use PS.....

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Thanks all, just working through the documentation files again.

[fringe_dweller]

stacking in PS isnt true 'stacking' in the multitude of pc programs sense of the word, its just averaging aint it? - cant remember off the top of my head - i have never been a big fan of stacked dslr images in KIS, only planets, (it doesnt like jpegs from memory either - i think i had to convert them to tiffs? long time ago now) i think the most basic 'free' pc proggies do a superior job unfortunately - i will be getting one of the u beaut fully automated press a button no brainer pc jobbies 'imagesplus' i think it was, when i have the bickies, and put it on my pc - i agree with what doug says, i love macs, but i'm not going to be a suffering martyr/pioneer about it. just get a pc for that stuff - there pretty cheap - or if you have a dual boot intel mac, your laffing

but in the music recording/editing programs, macs rule which is my biggest and main interest in using a mac

[Lee]

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

...get a pc...

[fringe_dweller]

Doug said it first

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

but in the music recording/editing programs, macs rule which is my biggest and main interest in using a mac

I'm with you there too fringey...I'm running logic express and garageband on my eMac. Before the OSX G4 I had an iMac with ProTools Free and lots of RTAS plug ins - Heaven.
Love astro and the music!!
Doug

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

Doug said it first

Yeah, but I've been dragged kickin' and screamin' into Gates-World
Doug

[Lee]

"Nebulosity" at www.stark-labs.com seems to be coming along nicely - it can now drive DSI's..... might be worth a look....

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Nebulosity sounds really great BUT I have reread the documentation n keith's Image Stacker and had success three times in a row now. Maybe its practice but I tried Registax on my work PC and had even less success. Horses for courses or maybe I'm just a geek.

[fringe_dweller]

Good onya Rob perseverance is maybe not my strong point but thats why i am on mac in the first place so i can just 'push a button' and it 'just works' goes against the mac credos (working too hard)

do you have any idea how many promising programs/games ect. i have been lead to believe, over the years, would come out properly on OSX, and 9,8 ect., and it never happened? i am sick of that crap

I had a funny reminder of the imbalance amd bias towards pc's (in some fields of endeavour) and what a tacked on afterthought/badly ported, most supplied propietry software for peripherals/hardware macs seem to be, when i backed up/ d/l and played with some jpgs/raws from my canon 350D, just as we was talking earlier.
onto my pc laptop first, then onto the G5, using the same supplied canon software you get with the camera - and beautifully it worked on the little pc laptop, and then how buggy and crappy it was on the beefy g5 - its the little things that count - like choice

i aint got anything against people wasting their own time tho

doug, they have the music thing all sown up dont they - 70% of the mp3 player market!! i want full blown pro tools eventually, and its nice to know ya not gonna crash and lose the lot! specially just after that never to be repeated genius riff you just recorded, at the very least - and dont have to back it up ad neaseum either eh

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Well, now I have it aligning and the results are still shockers Did an align and flicked between the reference and other frames and the problem now is the hand held camera. The angle between the camera and eyepiece is never the same and I get Canopus varying from round to quite ovoid. Now to get that camera bracket!!

In summary though getting Keith's Image Stacker to work is not too hard. It suffers from documentation that is written by the developer who is thouroughly familiar with the product and does not appear to have been proof read by non geeks. For the basic job there is only about half a dozen steps but you have to tease them from the documentation.

[jayscheuerle]

http://lynkeos.sourceforge.net/

Lynkeos is pretty good at aligning images, though I find it stacks them a little brightly for my tastes. You can then take that image and adjust it in either Keith's or P-shop. - j

[shankar (Shankar)]

Hi Rob. I have the same issues. KIS just stacks the frames and creates a blurry crap. How did you manage to create sharp single frame out of a quicktime movie. I have struggled for months now. somebody help!

[Heath (Heater)]

Try this one,

scroll down for list of Mac astro software

http://www.primordial-light.com/macastronomer.html

http://www.primordial-light.com/macastronomer.html