Jeff's M45 Data through PixInsight

Comment

Comment by Marc Basti on January 22, 2013 at 11:37am

Josh, interesting points and the price is reasonable. Good food for thought. Marc

Comment by Josh Lake on January 20, 2013 at 6:54pm

Thanks, Steve!

I'll say at the outset that Photoshop (and several other astro processing programs like CCD Stack and Nebulosity) can certainly produce fantastic images.

I'd say that PI is different in a number of ways. First, it is made specifically for astro processing (and can also be used for other science images, like medical data). Second, it is continually being updated with new tools that bring a great deal of power and control to your processing. Third, I find its object-oriented approach to both images and processes to make much more logical sense -- the workflow (once you know it) feels very much like a natural set of steps. Finally, I think it is far more scientifically correct, as it abhors any kind of arbitrary 'painting' that some users do in Photoshop.

Apart from the big reasons, there are some nice little tools that make people happy with it right away. The tool the convinced me is Dynamic Background Extraction, which kills gradients and vignetting incredibly well with just a bit of work. It has also allowed me to really step up my game in drawing out faint dust, strive for bolder colors, and maximize detail while handling noise.

It's got a bit of a learning curve and no single volume of documentation, just a lot of tooltips and scattered (but great) tutorials. I'm here to help if people want to see what its capable of!

I should note that I still use Photoshop as my primary non-astro imaging program and I love it. I've been using it since the beginning, and PS is a key part of my image work. But I've now come to the point where I process from raw frames in Maxim to the completed image all in PI, and my work has exponentially improved. No, I'm not a PI salesman; just a very satisfied customer!

PI is developed in Spain, so the cost is 171 Euros -- $227.25 at the time that I'm writing this. Worth every single little penny that I spent on it, let me tell you.

Comment by Steve Coates on January 20, 2013 at 4:42pm

I'm hearing an awful lot about this here PixInsight. What does PI do "better" that PS doesn't and how much is it? Nice processing Josh, well done!