Imaging Applications

[Frostyricho (Stephen)]

Hi members of IIS,
I have taken images of the milky way with my dslr camera and i want to process them. But i don't know which application to download. And it also has to be free. I have photoshop CS4 but for me it isn't satisfying my needs. Also if there is a link could you include it.

Kind regards,
Frostyricho

[pluto (Hugh)]

For processing photos of the Milky Way Photoshop is fine, in fact it really doesn't get much better for wide field stuff.

You probably want to try stacking multiple exposures to help bring out signal and reduce noise. For this you should check out DeepSkyStacker (it's free).
Once you've stacked some images in DSS then you can process them in Photoshop.

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html

[lazjen (Chris)]

Start with DSS as mentioned - get the latest version possible if you've got a more recent DSLR camera.

If photoshop isn't working for you, maybe GIMP could work?

[Frostyricho (Stephen)]

About Deep Sky Stacker i think it doesn't come on mac, can't seem to find the link for mac download anywhere. With stacking images how long of exposures should i do and how many photos should i take.

[lazjen (Chris)]

I didn't realise you were on a Mac. Not sure what's available there.

[Amaranthus (Barry)]

Nebulosity will do the trick: http://www.stark-labs.com/nebulosity.html

[antimorris (Anna)]

Nebulosity isn't free, but it's reasonably priced and does work on a Mac (I have it on mine). Might be worth giving a go if you don't mind the price too much for it.