PixInsight, does anyone use it?

[gthomas]

I found a copy of the old freeware LE version and tried that and rather liked it. I managed to get some quite good results with it.

So I've just got a trial license for the current version and had a go and I am completely baffled!. There seems to be no comprehensive help for beginners, the zoom is weird in the extreme. When I try and stretch the curves the image goes green!

I'm sure its me being thick but I but one is presented with a complex and strange interface and just left to ones own devices as far as I can see. Anyone here know how to really drive this beasty?

TVMIA

[swag72]

Have a look at Harry's videos here They are excellent. There's also a PI forum here and you can follow the links to the PI site and there's some tutorials there as well.

I use PI and I really do like it. It does some clever stuff, but really does need some patience and perseverance.

[Sparrow]

My own personal opinion of Pixinsight is that it is a very powerful piece of software that has been layed out in a very poor and user unfriendly way. Even previewing a process is not straighforward. I do use it for the dynamic background extraction as it is brilliant for gradient removal, but after trying it out I went back to Photoshop for my main processing - much more intuitive and simpler to use.

I know there are poeple on here who use it and it is not my intention to offend them. This is purely my own opinion of it and if other people use it successfully, then good luck to them.

Regards

John

[cgarry]

I use PI and love it, no Photoshop for me!

If you work through all the 'NEWBIE VIDEOS' in Sara's link then you will be well on your way to doing some top notch processing with PI.

Cheers,

Chris

[gthomas]

Thanks both.

Thank you for the links Sara. I had looked at the PixInsight online tutorials and found them assuming an existing knowledge. I was not aware of Harrys site and will look at that today.

[harry page]

Hi

you see I find that photoshop is very unfriendly and very complicated:D , its what you get used to

Obviously I am a big Pixinsight fan , all I say is try it out and then you pays your money and make your choice

Kind Regards Harry Page

My own personal opinion of Pixinsight is that it is a very powerful piece of software that has been layed out in a very poor and user unfriendly way. Even previewing a process is not straighforward. I do use it for the dynamic background extraction as it is brilliant for gradient removal, but after trying it out I went back to Photoshop for my main processing - much more intuitive and simpler to use.

I know there are poeple on here who use it and it is not my intention to offend them. This is purely my own opinion of it and if other people use it successfully, then good luck to them.

Regards

John

[Steve 1962]

Here's another vote in favour of Pixinsight - yes, it is laid out differently and takes a while to get to grips with, but it's well worth persevering. Watch Harry's videos and download the free trial is my advice.

Steve

[gthomas]

One thing I was looking for in PixInsight was a one-stop shop that did everything, but I notice that there is little mention of initial calibration of images in the tutorials. What do most people use instead then? I've used either Nebulosity or DSS up to now.

[Tim]

I use DSS for stacking, PI for most everything else, and PS for any layer masking that is required.

Like Harry said, the more you use it, the more familiar it becomes.

Cheers

Tim

[gthomas]

Cheers Tim.

I'll feed in my stacks from DSS for now then, thanks.

[Steve 1962]

There're also Image Calibration, Registration and Integration routines in PI - all of which work fine for me.

[ollypenrice]

Like a lot of others I use PI and Ps and couldn't manage without both of them. Ps is hands on, you grab things with your hands, so to speak. In PI you talk to it only through numbers.

PI is staggeringly good but has an inexcusably awful interface! Whenever I master something in PI I go back to it time and again, however.

Olly

[Sparrow]

Olly - I think you've explained exactly how I feel about it, better than I did myself:)

[Coco]

I use pixinsight with every imaging session, I hate the bloated stacking routines .. prefer simple Deep Sky Stacker, I love the PI DBE tool & Image integration ... as for photoshop? if I could only have one it would be photoshop but I have never regretted buying Pixinsight.

Harrys tutorials are fab, had he not made them I would have given up after the trial period expired.. play and pause his tutorials is a lot of fun..

I have never been able to make a star mask like in photoshop or been able to tweak local areas of interest with a brush, you cant clone stuff, create local area layers like for the centre of a glob or core of M42... if you can its well hidden in a complicated list of bewildering strange lists..

DSS stacking - Pixinsight for grads and RGB integration - Photoshop to polish value into the end result..