Portrait orientation RAWS - any solution?

[rubecula]

What a pickle.  I got some images of the Horsehead last night with the 550D.  Most of the images downloaded in Portrait orientation although a couple of the darks were landscape.  I tried stacking them in DSS only using the Portrait images and the result was a very narrow portrait tiff that didn't include all the image.  I therefore assume that DSS doesn't like portrait orientation images.

I tried to look up ways of rotating RAW images but it doesn't seem possible.  So I opened each one in Photoshop, rotated it and saved as a tiff. That worked OK.

I only managed to get 12 x 300 sec lights before it got cloudy so there weren't too many images to deal with.

However, the night before I took around 200 images of the Orion Nebula and there's a real mix of landscape and portrait images.  Before I start

1) Does anyone know of a better way than rotating each image one at a time?

2) Can you mix tiffs and RAWs in DSS?

and third, I need to look up how to stop the 550D outputting portrait images.  The 7D never did it

 

[Oddsocks]

Unable to suggest a quick way of changing the RAW Exif orientation data that you have already acquired however the image below from the Rebel T2i/EOS 550D manual shows you how to turn off the autorotate feature for both in-camera and / or in-camera and in-file.

 

[Thalestris24]

Hi

It sounds like you're using an old version of dss - do get the current version. I don't think the apparent orientation of the raws should make any difference.

Louise

[Davey-T]

You need this latest version.

Dave

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/download.htm

[rubecula]

Thanks Oddsocks, Louise and Davey. Things get worse but I'll come to that in a minute.

DSS, I'm running version 3.3.2.  I see on the above link there's 3.3.4 which is containded in a .rar file.  There is no setup for 3.3.4 so do you just replace the 3.3.2 deepskstacker.exe with the 3.3.4 version?

Now as I say things have got a little worse.  A newly purchased light panel arrived today so I dashed out to the observatory and took some flats.  I loaded those along with Lights, Darks and Bias frames into DSS and when trying to register the images was told that it couldn't do it as the files were different sizes.

Sure enough DSS reported the Light and Dark files as 5184 x 3456 but the Flats and Bias as 1336 x 3516.  On checking in Windows all the files are 5184 x 3456 RAWs!!

I had run DSS earlier in the day with just the Lights and Darks encountering the error above that produced the narrow portrait tiff image.  So could that be causing the different image size reporting?

To try and sort this out I uninstalled DSS and reinstalled it but am still getting the different image size issue.

 

 

[Davey-T]

Download the RAR 3.4.4 and unzip it if it's in dowloads you can unzip it there, you should then get a file with the DSS logo, see pic, you can right click on this and then click on create shortcut and it should volunteer to put a shortcut on your desktop.

Dave

 

[rubecula]

Thanks Dave, that's got 3.3.4 running   Still have the same issue with trying to stack them.  I get the message:

"The checked pictures are not compatibles (width, height, number of colours, number of channels, only one master dark, offset and flat)"

It could be something to do with mixing rotated tiffs with RAWs, so I think I'll abandon these images and wait for a clear sky to try again.

When I ran DSS this morning with just the light and dark rotated tiffs and then processed the result in StarTools the final image was unbelievably noisey.  This could be to do with the ISO but I'll create another thread for that.  Thanks again for all your help.

[The Admiral]

Robin, I sense your frustration here, and I think that there is a risk of jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

I'm pretty new to DSS and Star Tools myself, but my first comment is that if you are using Star Tools, that application needs data as unaffected by processing as it can. In particular, those data need to be linear and unstretched (which RAW files are). Converting your RAW files to TIFFs in Photoshop will likely apply a curve to the process and stretch the data. It may also affect the colour balance and noise. So, use the RAW files from the camera as feedstock for DSS.

Secondly, don't mix RAWs and TIFFs, even if DSS appears to accept them (don't think it will because they will likely end up being different sizes, which, as you've found out, DSS doesn't like.)

Use the latest version of DSS.

I use a Fuji X-T1 camera, and DSS doesn't like those RAWs at all, so I've had to end up converting all the RAWs to Adobe DNG and using those instead. Incidentally, I've taken images with the camera vertical and horizontal, but DSS still gives a horizontal format; it seems to ignore the orientation flag in the EXIF.

I'm on an ALT-AZ mount and can only take short subs, and I didn't do too bad with the Orion Neb with about 1500 seconds integrated exposure with a 4" 'scope. With the HorseHead I too was affected by cloud and only managed about 1000 seconds, and the result is noisy (https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/228101-the-no-eq-dso-challenge/?page=4). Star Tools will certainly need better data to produce decent results.

Ian

[michael8554]

Hi Robin

I had no trouble stacking Raw images of the Horsehead with DSS when my 450D was mounted "portrait" - the images when viewed and when loaded into DSS were landscape. 

So Oddsock's fix should sort you out.

The height of your portrait images (3516) is very similar to the width of your Landscape images (3456), so possibly your Portait images have been rotated into a Landscape frame. What were the portrait images dimensions in Photoshop? If they were 3456 x 5184 then did something go wrong in the rotation?

Michael

[wxsatuser]

6 hours ago, rubecula said:

Thanks Dave, that's got 3.3.4 running   Still have the same issue with trying to stack them.  I get the message:

"The checked pictures are not compatibles (width, height, number of colours, number of channels, only one master dark, offset and flat)"

It could be something to do with mixing rotated tiffs with RAWs, so I think I'll abandon these images and wait for a clear sky to try again.

When I ran DSS this morning with just the light and dark rotated tiffs and then processed the result in StarTools the final image was unbelievably noisey.  This could be to do with the ISO but I'll create another thread for that.  Thanks again for all your help.

They won't be compatible as the tiffs have already been debayered and a tone curve applied.

Your imaging at f/7 and only 12 subs so the noise issue is understandable, your going to need more subs or longer subs.

[Davey-T]

Hi Robin, I find it works best for astro imaging if you go into the camera menu and turn off auto rotate as per Oddsocks post.

Bit late for already captured images but should help in future

Dave

[rubecula]

Thanks you all again for your help.  Having upgraded to DSS 3.3.4 I tried again this morning with the original RAWS in their different orientations.  And it worked!!

Still a bit noisey but that might be down to the small number of Lights.  Another inch up this mile long learning curve

[The Admiral]

Don't let it grind you down

Ian

[wxsatuser]

It's a steep ol curve but keep at it.

[StuartJPP]

Just for reference, if you ever need to remove the portrait/landscape auto rotation and force it back to landscape in the Canon .CR2 file you can use a hex file editor to change address/offset 0x0000006E in the .CR2 file and make it 0x01.

Make a backup of your images first!