Move from Photoshop CC to PixInsight

[Andyb90]

Hi all,

Interested to hear if anyone has moved from Photoshop CC to PixInsight and if you're happy using only PixInsight.

I've just done a quick calculation and I've paid just under £400 on Photoshop CC monthly fees so far. PixInsight would be an upfront cost of £240 at current ex rate, but obviously I'll save money in the long run. I did have trial of PixInsight a while back and liked the look of it. I've also watched a number of videos on Youtube showing processing workflows and have been impressed.

Also I'm finding Photoshop CC hard to work with as my images are pixelated when zoomed out. I've tried to tweak the settings in CC, but can't get rid of the issue. The only way I can reduce the pixelation is to zoom into the image, but then I can't easily see the overall effect of applying processing steps/settings.

Andy.

[PeterCPC]

Have you considered Astro Pixel Processor. A very competent and easy to grasp software. Much cheaper than PI. I have both and never use PI anymore.

Peter

[vlaiv]

Why don't you give Gimp a go? It's free, so it will not cost you anything to try or continue to use if you find it ok to work with.

Just make sure you download and install 2.10 version, previous versions don't work with 32bit per channel data.

[jjosefsen]

4 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

Have you considered Astro Pixel Processor. A very competent and easy to grasp software. Much cheaper than PI. I have both and never use PI anymore.

Peter

As much as I love using APP, it is hardly a fully fledged processing suite.

No noise reduction being the biggest thing I see it missing.

[JSeaman]

I use Pixinsight for my first pass of processing but I have never fully used it for processing. I have no doubt it is capable but there is a big change of interface and I always fall back to PS for my final tweaks, I think you can try it for free and see what you think but I'd say it's a hugely powerful tool with more complexity than you want to see!

[SamAndrew]

I've been using PI for 4 months and find I'm using Photoshop less and less to the point that I don't use it at all for some images; the only things I go to PS for would be spot healing or blending different layers.

[Alien 13]

An affordable alternative to PS which is almost as good (better in a few respects) and has a similar interface is Affinity Photo, this with PI might be a solution...

Alan

[Andyb90]

8 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

Have you considered Astro Pixel Processor. A very competent and easy to grasp software. Much cheaper than PI. I have both and never use PI anymore.

Peter

Just had a look at the features on the website. Is it possible to do masking with Astro Pixel Processor?

[Andyb90]

4 hours ago, JSeaman said:

I use Pixinsight for my first pass of processing but I have never fully used it for processing. I have no doubt it is capable but there is a big change of interface and I always fall back to PS for my final tweaks, I think you can try it for free and see what you think but I'd say it's a hugely powerful tool with more complexity than you want to see!

I did see in some beginner tutorials that the processes can have a lot of options, but from what I could see the default options are generally pretty good for a beginner so that’s encouraging.

[JSeaman]

Yes that's true enough, it doesn't take too long to get to grips with at a basic level but you could easily lose yourself for days in there (time I personally don't have) but results are definitely impressive and you should see a step up from basic stretching in PS

[PeterCPC]

13 hours ago, jjosefsen said:

As much as I love using APP, it is hardly a fully fledged processing suite.

No noise reduction being the biggest thing I see it missing.

But that is easily dealt with in say Affinity Photo.

9 hours ago, Andyb90 said:

Just had a look at the features on the website. Is it possible to do masking with Astro Pixel Processor?

Not that I am aware of. But see above.

Peter

[jjosefsen]

5 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

But that is easily dealt with in say Affinity Photo.

Not that I am aware of. But see above.

Peter

True.

My point was you CAN use only PixInsight to do all the same things as PS, you can't really in APP.

Whether it is a good idea to do everything in PI is another matter, I find that somethings are easier to get right in Photoshop and/or APP still.

[Ouroboros]

On 2 April 2019 at 13:16, Andyb90 said:

Hi all,

Interested to hear if anyone has moved from Photoshop CC to PixInsight and if you're happy using only PixInsight.

I've just done a quick calculation and I've paid just under £400 on Photoshop CC monthly fees so far. PixInsight would be an upfront cost of £240 at current ex rate, but obviously I'll save money in the long run. I did have trial of PixInsight a while back and liked the look of it. I've also watched a number of videos on Youtube showing processing workflows and have been impressed.

Also I'm finding Photoshop CC hard to work with as my images are pixelated when zoomed out. I've tried to tweak the settings in CC, but can't get rid of the issue. The only way I can reduce the pixelation is to zoom into the image, but then I can't easily see the overall effect of applying processing steps/settings.

Andy.

I had the same problem with photoshop pixelating zoomed out images. I searched on line and found a solution involving one of the settings in preferences. The trouble is I now can't recall what I did. I've just searched again and think it might have been this: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/noise-photoshop-cc-images.html 

[wimvb]

On 02/04/2019 at 14:16, Andyb90 said:

I've just done a quick calculation and I've paid just under £400 on Photoshop CC monthly fees so far. PixInsight would be an upfront cost of £240 at current ex rate, but obviously I'll save money in the long run

That's why I chose pixinsight in the first place, and I've never regretted it. I've played with Gimp, but the lack of tools like dbe/abe and proper colour calibration means that it really isn't an alternative. Good processing software is as much an investment as good filters or a good camera.

[ollypenrice]

PI and Ps have entirely different mindsets and offer quite different intellectual environments. The Ps interface was designed to recreate the analogue world. This suits me in a way that PI doesn't but others prefer PI because it suits their way of thinking. It's not a case of better or worse so much as different.

Olly

[wimvb]

I agree with Olly, the work flow in PI is completely different from that in PS. Some things are easier to do in one than in the other. If you try to make PI work like PS or vice versa, you're in for a very hard time.

[Andyb90]

Thanks for the responses. I've had a good think and decided to purchase PixInsight. I've also just come across some interesting photoshop techniques in the past week that I hadn't seen before so if I can get the pixelation issue resolved I'll try them and compare to PixInsight. 

On 03/04/2019 at 15:20, Ouroboros said:

I had the same problem with photoshop pixelating zoomed out images. I searched on line and found a solution involving one of the settings in preferences. The trouble is I now can't recall what I did. I've just searched again and think it might have been this: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/noise-photoshop-cc-images.html 

Thanks for this link. Will give this a try to see if I can resolve the issue. If not will post a separate thread.