Alternative processing software

[craigb1970]

Hi  - Adobe Photoshop is very good but extremely expensive and if possible I would prefer to spend my money on optical equipment, there is still so much I need!  I would therefore be interested to know what people use as alternatives to Photoshop for astro-photography including processing RAW images.  I don't mind paying a reasonable amount but the full Photoshop package is out of my reach.

[wxsatuser]

I bought into PS with the monthly sub.

The best thing I did was buy PixInsight,.

If you can I would definately try and get it.

[craigb1970]

What are the advantages of pixinsight and do i also need Adobe Phoroshop or some other image processing software?

[Knight of Clear Skies]

StarTools is very good and very affordable, with a downloadable demo available. Lots of the tools "just work" without a lot of messing around. It's biggest weakness is the a lack of a histogram, so my workflow usually sees me switching back and forth between it and the Canon DPP software.

[Leveye]

10 dollars a month for Photoshop, Lightroom and Bridge is a not so bad really. Still my favorite tools for this craft. They just work.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I dont do imaging but i did dabble (badly) in graphic art in college as part of web design. Back then PS was and likely still is the best package around. My go-to graphics guy uses it....but yeah......it aint cheap. As i recall from a couple yrs ago when i was messing about with basic imaging,Gimp was pretty good. Its free.

[Merlin66]

AstroArtV5 for image acquisition and control, PaintShopPro for layers and tweaking.

[davedownsouth]

Pixinsight, worth every penny I spent on it

[davedownsouth]

Plus, you can try before you buy

[laser_jock99]

I use Photoshop Elements 12 mainly. It's basically a knobbled version of PS with some functionality switched of. Interestingly though some of these important functions (e.g. curves) can be 'switched back on' with various free plugins. 

Also there a few astro related plugins for PS that are also available for PS Elements (eg Noels Actions, Gradient Exterminator, HLVG)

[D4N]

Gimp is free and if you use the 2.9 beta (which has been beta forever it seems) then it has 16 bit support. Obviously not as good as PS but then it is free which counts for a lot when your pouring all your cash into bits of glass.

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[Guest]

Gimp ! is also a good choice.. and as already mentioned.. free !

[happy-kat]

I have Paintshop Pro and these plugins work in it Gradient Exterminator and HLVG and for specifics I went for StarTools.

I didn't go for Photoshop because I keep my software a long time, even my 1997 version of Paintshop Pro will run those plugins imagine how much it would have cost had I been paying for it on licence all these years, so I prefer to buy and own and then make it last as long as possible. But then I am dabbling with the odd image rather than spending serious amounts of time at it.

[craigb1970]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions

[DanL]

+1 for Pixinsight. I absolutely love it. You can get a 6 week free trial so plenty of time to use it and see if you get on with it. Then it's €230 to buy - which I appreciate isn't cheap as chips - but for me I found it money well spent when I consider how quick, easy and powerful it is to use.

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[glowingturnip]

another +1 for Pixinsight. 

Seems expensive for software, but it really is world-class for AP and is a lifetime any-PC licence.

For me, considering I spend much more time post-processing than I do actually capturing images, and it adds easily as much to the image as some of the lumps of hardware costing even more, I'd say it's a definite.

Hard to learn though...

[Pompey Monkey]

+1 for Pixinsight. I've just finished the trial period and, even though I only processed a few sets of images, I found the processing tools could be as powerful or as subtle as I liked. Works best with a fast PC though!

[PorkyB]

Photoline http://pl32.com/ is my main image processing tool.  It has many features of Photoshop, but at 59 Euros is much cheaper.

[Herra Kuulapaa]

Pixinsight is usually considered the best, or at least one among the best.

It may not be the easiest one to learn with a very steep learning curve, but it has such a great variety of astrophotography specific tools including pixel rejection algorithms.