Pixinsight

[Aenima]

If anyone has used pixinsight either successfully or otherwise, please could you write your thoughts on how it was to use and how it compares to other software you might have tried?

I hopefully want to get an idea of its pro's and cons as well as usability and value for money.

Many thanks for any input to the thread (if it becomes one of course....)

Regards

Aenima

ps I'm aware of the trial period

[IanL]

Value for money: Well worth it for the DBE tool alone, which is the best gradient/vignetting removal tool on the market, and it's maybe 1% of the overall package. Compare the cost to a legitimate copy of PhotoShop and it is a bargain.

Pros:

- Many advanced processing tools under one roof: I haven't needed to use anything else since I started with it a year and a half ago.

- (Almost) every processing step can be turned in to an icon and undone/repeated at will. This makes it simple to try different strategies in your workflow, or repeat them over a bunch of images.

- Advanced scripting and development tools; if you like coding you can automate your own workflow or create your own tools. If you don't you still benefit, since many of the really useful functions have been created by the user community using these tools.

- Cross-platform, one license allows you to install on Windows, Mac and Linux.

- Constantly being developed. E.g. A new TGVDenoise tool was released recently, it is the best noise reduction tool I have ever used, and that is saying something as some of PI's other tools are amongst the best on the market.

Cons:

- There is a learning curve, and it is a bit steep. The approach is not the same as a photo-processing package and you need to adjust your mindset considerably if you are a long time PhotoShop user. That said, there is nothing to stop one using PI for some processing steps and then switching to PhotoShop (or similar) for others.

- Lack of documentation, which is non-existent or incomplete/out of date for some tools. That said, there are loads of examples, tutorials and help online, plus a supportive user community.

- The user interface takes a bit of time to get used to (as it is cross-platform), but it makes perfect sense once you get your head around it.

- Doesn't hand-hold you through the processing workflow; you have to figure it out for yourself. That said, the batch pre-processing script will take you from bias, darks, flats and lights to a stacked image in one shot, and is no harder to use than DSS, but with the advantage that you can break things down into individual stages later and tweak your settings with a lot more control.

- Many tools have loads of settings, which can be a bit overwhelming. That said, in many cases the defaults work well or just need a bit of tweaking. When they don't work, you really have to get your thinking cap on and figure out what is what.

It seems to me that almost everyone struggles with PI when they first start; some give up on it, others just end up using it for a few of the really good tools, but others become complete converts to the PI way of thinking. It is a different mindset and really the only way you'll know whether it is right for you or not is to give the free trial a whirl, but be prepared to invest a couple of weeks of serious effort in getting to know PI as it isn't something you pick up in ten minutes.

Harry will be along very soon no doubt to start your induction to the light side of the force

[kirkster501]

I am starting to use it now after buying it last week. To say it is huge, vast, enormous is an understatement! It's simply an immense piece of software with a significant learning curve. Who said this hobby was easy and point and click? Well worth it to learn the tools. You can't process images with Windows Paint!

The PI forum is very useful. Harry's videos are superb as well. There are also numerous other tutorials on the net.

I have just spent two hours, getting my head round image integration, calibration and registration and just stacked my first LRGB image with PI !!!

Steve

[ollypenrice]

Utterly essential but needlessly obscure.

A few tools I cannot live without. DBE, SCNR.

Also a poisoned chalice, tempting people who should know better into producing insane images with not the slightest bearing on reality. How to turn a lovely image of nature into a graphics diagram. Handle Pixinsight with care and use it wisely.

Great value and a sincere product written by people of genius in need of a translator.

Use it in conjuction with Photoshop. Don't be bullied into becoming a PI fundamentalist.

Harry Page is your friend.

Olly

[Earl]

I stick with PI as i cba to learn PS, downside... brown hrd wavelets... always brown.. dont get.

[harry page]

Hi

Please do not be put off by the proposed learning curve its not that hard, Its just people who have spent many hours learning photoshop try and photoshop

a image in Pixinsight

Ian Has put it well and a free 45 day trial should help you make up your mind if it is for you and personaly think the Adobe cloud model of photoshop is going to kill it of for the

average user , far far to much money.

Give it a go and if you need help just rub the magic ccd camera and I will appear

Regards

Harry

[harry page]

I stick with PI as i cba to learn PS, downside... brown hrd wavelets... always brown.. dont get.

Hi

Wavlets will not change the colour , its already brown , you can try a lum mask when using wavlets to reduce its effect or shock horror pixel maths ( just add some wavlets to the original and adjust to taste )

Regards

Harry

[Aenima]

Huge thank you for all the posts, recently been struggling with some of the smaller forums when posting as the feedback is very limited, so grateful for some input - might just be sheer numbers but I still find SGL to be the most 'responsive' forum there is (with exception to maybe the more 'international' ones, but i dont post in any so SGL seems a lot better).

Anyway, yes - pixinsight is both popular and powerful. I'm finding though that its very resource heavy, this is the bad news as my 32bit vista junkbox will not stand up to the pressure, dual core with only 1 or 2 ghz of ram - this is way under what minimum specs are for PI - so its looking like i'd need to save up for a laptop as well as the software itself. My budget is another topic, but suffice to say it seems a little beyond my current capability. Which sucks as the program sounds well worth a shot.

I might be able to use a 64bit system but that still only has dual core and a couple of gig ram, how slow would it be if it runs at all?

Regards

Aenima

[RAC]

I just went from 32bit vasta with 3gb of ram to windows 8 with 12gb of ram and the difference was huge with PI processing times. Its an older 920 I7 cpu. PI and 32bit don't get on. You don't need 12gb of ram though, I find it hard to use over 5gb at any one time and that's when stacking, processing and playing an hd movie all at once.

I wouldn't be without PixInsight EVER!

[James]

.. Please do not be put off by the proposed learning curve its not that hard, Its just people who have spent many hours learning photoshop try and photoshop

a image in Pixinsight

There may be something in that. I went straight to Pixinsight when I started processing, in part as it's available on the Mac too, in part as I have barely used Photoshop so I was in for a learning curve regardless. A couple of years in I'm not an expert PI user but I had a good look at Photoshop a few weeks back and threw my hands up at the complexity of it...

[quote

Give it a go and if you need help just rub the magic ccd camera and I will appear

Jesting aside Harry's tutorials are invaluable. I'm convinced my wife and the neighbours think Harry's in my back garden at night when I have a video running whilst the data is captured and they can hear him explaining something.

If you really want to get into the maths/algorithms behind the various functions you can do that too - the Pixinsight forum is useful but for me goes well into complex mathematics sometimes.

So far I've found little that PI can't do - perhaps the only 'issue' is that people have been using Photoshop for years and in huge numbers - there's usually info out there on how to do pretty much everything in Photoshop. For PI whilst there is a lot of info it's not yet as comprehensive...

I haven't found it massively resource hungry but then I have a recent MacBook Pro loaded with RAM.

Finally, as others have said there's a 45 day trial available. Even in the UK that should give enough time to use it on data you've captured.

James

[Aenima]

I just went from 32bit vasta with 3gb of ram to windows 8 with 12gb of ram and the difference was huge with PI processing times. Its an older 920 I7 cpu. PI and 32bit don't get on. You don't need 12gb of ram though, I find it hard to use over 5gb at any one time and that's when stacking, processing and playing an hd movie all at once.

I wouldn't be without PixInsight EVER!

Thanks for the info regarding 32bit systems. recently my laptop is more and more bogged down by the astro image storage and processing and its age is getting quite noticeable. My friend has a 64 bit dual core, with about 2 gig ram, which I would be able to use for pix insight - though it is old and less powerful than the software min requirements, I might get away with it by only using it for PI stuff while keeping the rest of my data and software on the older laptop, but I think the system will still struggle with the program.

i know the best way to find out is the trial period download, but it's good to be prepared prior to starting so the trial isn't wasted.

im very grateful for the responses and info posted here and will follow up after trying the program for the purpose of giving my opinion and sharing how I got on in case it helps other potential pixinsight users in the future.

many thanks,

regards

Aenima

[Barry-Wilson]

I'm trying a trial licence at the moment and have found PI a HUGE leap beyond Nebulosity both in terms of quality results and complexity (at first), and I think Neb's pretty good. Harry's video tutorials are excellent and invaluable; I 'm surprising myself that the terminology is beginning to make sense, although Olly's posting made me smile . . . Great value and a sincere product written by people of genius in need of a translator . . . how true! Wise words also about not over-egging the image.

I'm going to be buying.

Barry

[harry page]

Hi

Its not Pixinsight that overdoes the images , its the user

With great power , comes great responsibility

Harry

[Physicist13]

Im trying PI at the moment and love it! Harry's vids are invaluable!!

[Aenima]

Has anyone had success on a dual core 64bit machine, with 2g ram? Its likely the most resource i'm gonna get for a while, if its not enough then its probably best to look for a better laptop first.

Regards

Aenima

ps I havent used nebulosity so dont really follow the comparison but im guessing its another program that has very different styles to stacking or layer based stuff?

[andrewluck]

I used the previous version (1.7) on an AMD 4000+ with 2GB and Windows XP 32 bit.

It was slow, but functional. Using previews saves a lot of time.

Andrew

[Gib007]

I have to say I wouldn't be happy with any of my images if I had not used PixInsight. It is simply incredibly powerful and for the price, very much well worth it. I have a number of workflow tutorials you can follow if you want to learn how to go from your raw calibrated images to your final result using a good number of tools for all sorts of purposes:

http://lightvortexastronomy.blogspot.com/p/tutorials.html

[Aenima]

I have to say I wouldn't be happy with any of my images if I had not used PixInsight. It is simply incredibly powerful and for the price, very much well worth it. I have a number of workflow tutorials you can follow if you want to learn how to go from your raw calibrated images to your final result using a good number of tools for all sorts of purposes:

http://lightvortexas.../tutorials.html

Many thanks for the link - there is much at the other end of interest, and some very good pictures

I think while deepskystacker is a very good and intuitive program and being freeware I can't thank the developer(s) enough for the time and effort spent on it, it does however have a limit for those who dont know enough about the technical side to get the best from the software and data - it has much more capability than I am currently getting from it, but perhaps pixinsight is similar in that way? I might not be able to figure it out, or use it well enough to take my images any further than what Ive managed in DSS - plus there may also be the limits imposed by my capture equipment : An aging 300d - this gives deepskystacker trouble in the form of noise and lines or patterns which end up in the images, can pixinsight cope with the older camera issues? and maybe the tracking or collimation problems also? Its more and more obvious as time goes by that my scope is in need of a coma-corrector, and then there is the tracking/guiding etc. which is dealt with by an interesting part of the PI toolbox, 'deconvolution' - is it really that good with star shapes and correcting problems caused by bad collimation? I think there are a few programs that use it, but none of them appear any easier to use.

My set-up has more problems that need ironing out than my brain can get a grip on all at once so it's one step at a time right now. I appreciate the info on the pixinsight program and its pro's n con's, and am intending to gather a little more wherewithal prior to downloading the trial version - make the most of the time-limit, if possible on old and new data

Thanks again.

Regards

Aenima

[Gib007]

Many thanks for the link - there is much at the other end of interest, and some very good pictures

I think while deepskystacker is a very good and intuitive program and being freeware I can't thank the developer(s) enough for the time and effort spent on it, it does however have a limit for those who dont know enough about the technical side to get the best from the software and data - it has much more capability than I am currently getting from it, but perhaps pixinsight is similar in that way? I might not be able to figure it out, or use it well enough to take my images any further than what Ive managed in DSS - plus there may also be the limits imposed by my capture equipment : An aging 300d - this gives deepskystacker trouble in the form of noise and lines or patterns which end up in the images, can pixinsight cope with the older camera issues? and maybe the tracking or collimation problems also? Its more and more obvious as time goes by that my scope is in need of a coma-corrector, and then there is the tracking/guiding etc. which is dealt with by an interesting part of the PI toolbox, 'deconvolution' - is it really that good with star shapes and correcting problems caused by bad collimation? I think there are a few programs that use it, but none of them appear any easier to use.

My set-up has more problems that need ironing out than my brain can get a grip on all at once so it's one step at a time right now. I appreciate the info on the pixinsight program and its pro's n con's, and am intending to gather a little more wherewithal prior to downloading the trial version - make the most of the time-limit, if possible on old and new data

Thanks again.

Regards

Aenima

No worries at all, I hope you find them helpful. My daily statistics for Google Blogger show they are pretty popular!

I like DeepSkyStacker as well. PixInsight can do the entire calibration process though and one need not use PixInsight. I do believe it is better to use PixInsight overall but I admit I have not used it myself - I have always used DeepSkyStacker, for no reason other than because that's how I started doing things.

In terms of using a coma corrector and performing proper collimation, I don't think any amount of post-processing can replace these things. You might achieve acceptable results but as you progress and gain experience, you will likely look down on the results. It's best to get a suitable coma corrector for your telescope (Skywatcher's works perfectly well on my f/5 telescope!) and develop an OCD for proper collimation. This page is brilliant if you use a Cheshire Collimation Eyepiece: http://www.astro-baby.com/collimation/astro%20babys%20collimation%20guide.htm

[Gib007]

*One need not use DeepSkyStacker (for calibration, as you can use PixInsight fully)

^Is what I meant to say, hehe.

[Aenima]

Im trying PI at the moment and love it! Harry's vids are invaluable!!

Thats cool, let me know how you get on

Regards

Aenima

[steppenwolf]

I downloaded the software recently, copied the link to my laptop from the trial acceptance email and ran it on the laptop once in preparation for taking it on holiday. Sadly, on holiday in a secluded field in the New Forest, I fell at the very first hurdle as the software appears to not work without a network connection so I am obviously missing something here and even worse, I've lost two weeks of my trial period!

I really wanted to get into this software but now that I have returned from my holiday and have a network connection again I discover that the 32 bit version I have downloaded is 'obsolete' and according to the warning message, not supported! The advice is to change my O/S to 64 bit (no thanks!) and download the 64 bit version.

Sorry guys but this is not a good start!

[harry page]

Hi

The trial version needs a network connection as it is limited to the 45 days and it keeps a eye on you , If you buy you do not need a connection and it will run fine

As for the 64 bit thing , Yes you really need it as it helps to be able to use all that memory you might have , 32 bit is restricted to about 1 gig

I am afraid 64 bit is the way to go

Regards Harry

[Earl]

64 bit 8 cores and 16gb ram.... sweet PI

[steppenwolf]

Thanks, for your comments, Harry, much appreciated. Such a pity I downloaded this with the intention of learning how to use it while relaxing in the forest where there was never going to be an Internet connection!

Maybe I will look at it again in the future when 32 bit OS's are a thing of the past. Perhaps they are already are a thing of the past but not on my PCs their not!