Best way to edit images

[Dark Adaptation]

What is the best way to edit an image? Like how do I get the most amount of detail out of it? I know to sharpen it and to turn up the contrast and pop, but is there something I'm missing? Like stacking images and removing backgrounds? I'm quite an amateur here...😁😁

[Elp]

Processing images is very subjective, you can do all manner of things to get a result, and post processing is where most of the pizzazz is achieved in AP.

Most planetary/solar/lunar images and deep space images will have been stacked with hundreds/thousands of images with the best percentage used for quality. Unless the individual has chosen to use a few or just one image.

After that it's a case of processing the resulting image further, this can involve all manner of things, sometimes it may take seconds to do, sometimes hours.

I'd advise looking for some YouTube videos on astrophotography processing to give you an idea.

[Dark Adaptation]

16 hours ago, Elp said:

I'd advise looking for some YouTube videos on astrophotography processing to give you an idea.

Thank you, I'll try that. (Why didn't I think of that before?? )

[happy-kat]

Maybe see what astrobusuit has as I think there are a couple

Edited September 7, 2022 by happy-kat
Grammar

[AstroMuni]

Once you have read up about the basic workflow of processing, pick a software (try out a few until you are comfortable) and then learn the features and how best to use them. You might decide to use multiple software - eg. one to stack and another to post process. Thats perfectly normal. Here are a few to consider:

- Siril - FREE

- DSS (DeepSky Stacker) - FREE

- APP (Astro pixel processor)

- StarTools

- Affinity Photo

- PixInsight (the big brother of all)

[happy-kat]

GIMP free image processing

ASTAP free stacking

Sequator free stacking

Fitsliberator free fits file viewer

Registax free planets

Autostakker free planets

PIPP free planets

Sharpcap free planets but pro is good and very reasonable

 

[iantaylor2uk]

I use Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) for stacking and Nebulosity or Affinity for image processing. Nebulosity is free now and Affinity is quite cheap.

[AstroMuni]

10 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

Affinity for image processing.

And Affinity now supports stacking too. I havent tried the stacking aspect of it though. Is there a reason you prefer DSS?

Edited September 7, 2022 by AstroMuni

[Gfamily]

James Ritson has produced some free Affinity macros for Astrophotography processing.

I'm pretty sure you can try these out on the trial version of Affinity Photo

https://jamesritson.co.uk/resources.html

[iantaylor2uk]

27 minutes ago, AstroMuni said:

And Affinity now supports stacking too. I havent tried the stacking aspect of it though. Is there a reason you prefer DSS?

Not tried Affinity for stacking yet. I find DSS pretty simple to use and it's fairly fast at stacking (I use a gaming PC with 16 Gb RAM which also helps!). I'll try stacking on Affinity and see how it compares.

[DaveS]

AstroArt 8, very fast and good stacking, plus seriously underrated processing, with tools that get better with each version.

Trouble is, it's been around a while so tends to get overlooked in favour of the latest "flavour-of-the-month" package.

It's also much more intuitive than PixInsight which had me  .

[Elp]

No issue with DSS either, straightforward and pretty quick.

[newbie alert]

Processing is very subjective, some people have a different idea on what they want out of a image...