Decon madness!

[JB80]

Well if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

Not entirely sure where I stand here as you may see, in the interest of being cheap I haven't tried Astra Image 4.0 yet so I have used the free 3.0 version and thought I would try it against Smart Sharpen in Photoshop.

The results between the two are very close, in PS I use smart sharp at 500% with a radius of 2.3, in AI3.0 I used 248 Iterations with a PSF of I think 1.60, I say I think because I did muck around a bit so it may of been slightly more or less.

Personally I think there is only a slight difference with AI3.0 possibly better at handling the noise, you really do need to look hard to see the difference.

This left me in two minds really as to weather or not to purchase AI4.0, is it actually a lot better than 3.0?

Anyway, I then remembered that my copy of a WillBell book that my wife got me came with AIP4WIN software and thought it was the perfect opportunity to install that and try it's deconvolution out. So I did.

It is clearly different than the two other methods with I think some things that are better and others that aren't.

Nothing apart from the Lucy Richardson Decon and Smart Sharpen have been applied to the images.

So now I have tried them I wonder what to make of it all.

Please click to gifferize!

[Montana]

Actually I like the Smart sharpen the best but I agree, if you have a lot of noise then Astra image is better and it gives a good noiseless result. I have only Astra Image 4 experience so I can't say whether it is better than 3 but it is certainly 100x better than the free trail of 2.5 I once had.

Alexandra

[Luke]

Cor, this Asra Image Fest is a blast It's been a great help and encouragement to see everyone's efforts. I used AI quite a lot for lunar images (mainly Wiener, now I am keen to go back and try LR) and intended to play some more with h-alpha.

Jarrod, your AI3 beats Smart Sharpen for me, fairly comfortably(!), but I cheated and saved the gif, loaded it into Photoshop and added an Exposure adjustment layer (Exposure: +1.41, Gamma 0.77). To my eyes, the AI3 has nailed down the detail finer, the Smart Sharpen looks coarser to my eyes.

The AIP4WIN looks really interesting, I wonder if it would look neat blended in with the LR layer?

[JB80]

Actually I like the Smart sharpen the best but I agree, if you have a lot of noise then Astra image is better and it gives a good noiseless result. I have only Astra Image 4 experience so I can't say whether it is better than 3 but it is certainly 100x better than the free trail of 2.5 I once had.

Alexandra

Thanks, I think it's a real close call but noise is something I do seem to get a bit of. I think it definitely warrants more experimenting with the different cameras and scope set up. Normally I hit it with noise reduction after any way but if I have to do less is certainly warrants investigating.

Not yet convinced enough to purchase 4.0 though.

Cor, this Asra Image Fest is a blast It's been a great help and encouragement to see everyone's efforts. I used AI quite a lot for lunar images (mainly Wiener, now I am keen to go back and try LR) and intended to play some more with h-alpha.

Jarrod, your AI3 beats Smart Sharpen for me, fairly comfortably(!), but I cheated and saved the gif, loaded it into Photoshop and added an Exposure adjustment layer (Exposure: +1.41, Gamma 0.77). To my eyes, the AI3 has nailed down the detail finer, the Smart Sharpen looks coarser to my eyes.

The AIP4WIN looks really interesting, I wonder if it would look neat blended in with the LR layer?

I have been preoccupied of late and all of the sudden there is an Astra Imagefest going on. I had to see what the fuss was all about before I missed out altogether.

I think it's a close call but I will try it again on some other images, I haven't tried adding any adjustments yet to the AI3 image.

I could try and blend the AIP4WIN one, do you mean just a straightforward blend of the two layers?

When I hit that image with noise reduction it brings it back and much closer to the other two images, it is a lot rougher around the edges though but it may have it's merits yet.

Actually the software as a whole looks interesting, I may have to check out it's other features.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get some fresh data and some time to try a number of different things.

[Pete Presland]

nice to see a different approach.

[Luke]

I could try and blend the AIP4WIN one, do you mean just a straightforward blend of the two layers?

When I was feeling energetic, I sometimes tried three different sharpen methods and sometimes preferred a blend of two of them, it was usually just adjusting the opacity of the top layer.

But with this one I'd suggest try adjusting the blending mode too, e.g. Multiply, Overlay, Soft Light, that might help combine its feel of extra depth with the fine detail?

[DrRobin]

Nice comparison Jarrod. The smart sharpen and AI look fairly similar on my pad, but the AIP4WIN looks to have over sharpened?

I have tried AI3.0 and 4.0 Plus and not sure there is much difference between the two in the LR deconvolution. They do seem to use different settings, but I guess the answer is get used to one.

AI4.0 Plus does give a few extra tools and as it is relatively low cost so is the one I will go for.

Robin

[JB80]

When I was feeling energetic, I sometimes tried three different sharpen methods and sometimes preferred a blend of two of them, it was usually just adjusting the opacity of the top layer.

But with this one I'd suggest try adjusting the blending mode too, e.g. Multiply, Overlay, Soft Light, that might help combine its feel of extra depth with the fine detail?

I will have a tinker with it when I can and see, thanks for the tips. I rarely use blend mode so I will have to try it because it sounds like a good plan if it works.

Actually you mentioned a word in the above post that I have been searching for but couldn't put my finger on it. DEPTH!

That is exactly what I feel my images lack but found it hard to describe it and I believe you have hit the nail on the head with that description of the AIP4WIN image, for everything that it lacks it has a depth that the others don't.

Nice comparison Jarrod. The smart sharpen and AI look fairly similar on my pad, but the AIP4WIN looks to have over sharpened?

I have tried AI3.0 and 4.0 Plus and not sure there is much difference between the two in the LR deconvolution. They do seem to use different settings, but I guess the answer is get used to one.

AI4.0 Plus does give a few extra tools and as it is relatively low cost so is the one I will go for.

Robin

It could be a touch over sharpened, I don't really have a guide to go by with that software yet and it's settings are different again so it will take some tweaking. It definitely does seem to give a different result but it still uses LR deconvolution.

I think I will stick with 3.0 for now at least if there isn't a huge amount between them, the PRO package does look to be incredibly useful for all sort of things though not just astro work and the value is good so I'll probably cave in eventually. 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice comparison. I am Google to try the different deconvolution options in ImageJ (package called deconvolution lab), not just because it's free, but because ImageJ can handle batch processing.