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Mosaic help


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Heya,

So I'm attempting my first ever mosaic. Just thinking of ways to make my life easier. Should I stack the images separately and then do the process of merging manually in Photoshop or should I stack them all together in DSS in mosaic mode and would that even work?

Thanks in advance :)

Clear skies!

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On 19/09/2019 at 19:31, simondodd said:

Heya,

So I'm attempting my first ever mosaic. Just thinking of ways to make my life easier. Should I stack the images separately and then do the process of merging manually in Photoshop or should I stack them all together in DSS in mosaic mode and would that even work?

Thanks in advance :)

Clear skies!

Hi Simon.

I dont know the target you captured, so I will use the moon as an example. Ideally, you stack the images before making the mosaic. A good reason is that AutoStakkert alignment points will use the algorithm to determine frames quality and position to produce a good final image. If you try to build the mosaic first, these alignment points will not work well and even the quality graphic can produce a false result.

Stack each video first, then build the mosaic. Finally make adjustments to brightness, contrast, sharpness ... using your favorite software. A good one for mosaics is the Microsoft ICE. It's free and very easy to use. Worth it.

 

Lucas

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Thanks, I eventually found MS ICE. Worked a treat! Unfortunately I didn't quite get my panels lined up enough so will be going again when I next get a good run of clear skies :) 

Here is what I managed though! :)

 

Veil mosaic 1.jpg

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21 hours ago, simondodd said:

Thanks, I eventually found MS ICE. Worked a treat! Unfortunately I didn't quite get my panels lined up enough so will be going again when I next get a good run of clear skies :) 

Here is what I managed though! :)

 

Veil mosaic 1.jpg

Good to know Microsoft ice can do deep sky..but with any mosaic you need abit of overlapp 

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The old king of the mosaic is Registar, which I use all the time. https://aurigaimaging.com/ It isn't cheap but it is very, very good and will calibrate images to match before combining them, avoiding the lines which are present in the ICE result you've posted. The new kid on the block is Astro Pixel Processor https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/.

If sticking with ICE you can help it by stretching all the individual panels first and then attending to the background sky levels before stitching. In Ps you can use the Colour Sampler eyedropper to measure the background levels of all the images. These levels need to be the same where the overlaps occur. You can use Ps Curves and/or Dodge and Burn to get them very close.

Really good flattening of the images first is also a big help. Try to get rid of all gradients on the individual frames.

Olly

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