raw files

[brrttpaul]

Hi guys I was wondering, After I have taken my subs which are all in RAW format and run through DSS do I save as is before messing with the sliders in DSS?. My normal thing is DSS then when thats done I toggle the sliders in it then save (sure I save it as a TIFF) I then use GIMP or lightroom and always end up saving as JPEG. But I was thinking if I save the untouched DSS then open up in GIMP and stretch there that would be better wouldnt it? any ideas ? as I get lost between what formats to save in EG TIFF, FITS etc

[jambouk]

I wouldn't do anything in DSS other than stacking the data. The image at te emd will look very white, ignore that. Just click save as on the left near the middle, then save as a tiff and do all processing in your chosen processing software. Don't use the aliders in DSS.

James

[brrttpaul]

Ah right I thought so , so stack in DSS soon as its finished  SAVE AS TIFF FILE, then into GIMP and open the said file, stretch in there and export as JPEG?. think thats it. I read somewhere about open as FITS save as TIFFs etc and thats what has confused me. Last thing, obviously I cant save it as RAW after its been processed but what would be the best thing to save it as if I wanted to finnish off in lightroom after GIMP

[beamer3.6m]

Save as TIFF (16 bit I believe).

It gives you the option of how to save and you need to make sure the 'embed ???? but do not apply' is used. I cannot remember the exact wording.

In processing software open the tiff and then process it. I would then save it as a Tiff file in case you want to fiddle a bit more.

Only save as a JPEG when you know you want to export it to the web or this site etc.

[brrttpaul]

Thanks for that I am in the middle of taking subs right now (M31) and will have a go like you said.  Saying that I,m pretty sure that GIMP 2.8 only goes to TIFF 8bit not 16, would that be a problem?

[beamer3.6m]

I am not familiar with gimp but if it can only use 8 bit then I would save as both 16 and 8 bit just in case.

[brrttpaul]

just been reading up on it and it converts them to 8 bit so I will be saving both, as it happens im in the middle right now and touch wood everythings going well for the first time with the images im taking, so far I have got 40 subs @ 1600 iso and 20 subs @800 ISO taken with a 300mm lens and 1.4 converter. another 15 mins and i will do some darks

[D4N]

When you convert an image down to 8bit you lose the ability to stretch it without destroying the data.

You need to perform at least the initial stretch in a 16bit environment.

So, you can either do a stretch in DSS then do the rest in GIMP or get GIMP 2.9 which supports 16 bits per channel.

You will lose a lot of your fine data by stretching it in an 8 bit image processing program.

/Dan

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[brrttpaul]

I have just discovered that, all day messing about with it, have to say when i stretched it in DSS it didnt look to bad considering there were no darks no flats just lights. After messing with various things in gimp I came to the conclusion I,m better off initially in DSS. Does anyone use faststone image viewer? I have to be honest I find that a lot easierwhen handling many subs because it shows them as thumbnails instead of just a file name. I go through the thumbs deleting whats rubbish then I click on the ones I want and save them to a folder so they dont get all mixed up

[dph1nm]

Yes, always stretch and get a decent picture in DSS first and save that if you are going to use 8-bit GIMP. GIMP does not handle the unscaled 16-bit DSS files well. I do all my processing like this.

NIgelM

[brrttpaul]

cheers guys

[jambouk]

Yes, in that case maybe align the RGB and get image roughly normal in DSS first.

Photoshop CS3 was available for free legitamely from the Adobe website - not sure if it still is. Could look for that; I had to register an account (free) but was straight forwards.

I use daststone just for viewing images, but haven't really used it to do any processing; i think it is much more basic than either gimp or photoshop.

James

[D4N]

Whilst you can freely download CS3 the licensing for it says you must have previously bought it whilst it was on sale. It is not free software. Possibly Adobe don't care but they haven't made the software free they have just removed the DRM.

Nebulosity and PI both have good image sorting modes, DSS is a bit slow at this.

/Dan

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[beamer3.6m]

Try and get photoshop if you can. Even an old version.

I use cs2 and prefer it to the newer versions such as cc6.