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Which Photoshop?

Bizibilder

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

Posted
Posted

Alas, Elements is inadequate for astro image processing. Well maybe that's too strong but you will sooner or later go to CS3. Version 7 had to drop into 8 bit for a lot of purposes. However, I have never found this to be much of an issue and many of the pictures I post were done on V7. I have never really found CS3 to be radically better, just a bit smarter and with a good noise reduction filter if you don't have something like Neat Image.

Of course Harry Page will tell you to go for PixInsight instead. I haven't tried that but it seems good and Harry is no fool.

Amazon often have a good price on CS3. You don't need CS4 for astro imaging I don't think. But you do need a thoroughly serious processing programme and the full Ps is certainly that. Also many aftermarket plug-ins are written for it.

Olly

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RobH

RobH

Posted
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Anything from CS onwards, but as Olly says, after CS3 you get lots of features that you don't need for astro processing.

I have just moved to CS3 in the last few weeks, but spent a long time on CS and CS2.

Nik Szymanek swears by CS, and doesn't see the need to go bayond it, and he is rather good ;)

Cheers

Rob

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harry page

harry page

Posted
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Hi

I do like Pixinsight and at 200 euro,s it is cheaper than photo shop :mad:

I do suggest you get a trial of each program and see what you like , but as said a good processing package is essential for you to get the best from your images ;)

Regards Harry ( slightley foolish )

Harry

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PortableAstronomer

PortableAstronomer

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I use Pixinsight, and would not dream of going back to CS3.

The Dynamic Background Extraction tool was enough to convince me to switch over, while most of the guys at my local club (when I was in UK) were doing the white-sheep with Photoshop and forking out several hundred pounds in the belief that it was the only serious tool. I discovered a lot of contempt over other products (non PS) from stubborn folk who were stuck in their ways who considered anything else to be 'toys' not for serious use. What nonsense.

Then I had some people ask me to process their images for them because they discovered I was getting more out of the images than they were.

Sure lots of people will be using PS for a long time. 5 years ago it may have been the only tool that has everything required, and after a large software investment such people won´t want to drop it anytime soon. Just because some of the well-known imagers happen to use PS doesn't make it the best product *today*.

You can see the sort of light pollution I have to deal with (and get around) here

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/101393-m51-through-murky-orange-skies.html

and here

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-tips-tricks-techniques/93728-examples-extreme-processing-extreme-light-pollution.html

Can't wait to visit some UK skies again and see what can be done under darker skies !

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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Whatever you can get cheap but CS4 was a dog... so dont be tempted skip it.... I kept both CS3 and CS4 on the machine at the same time as I hated CS4...

Pixinsight is superb.. but I keep putting off buying it as something shinny always comes along instead...

Peter...

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harry page

harry page

Posted
Posted

Come on in the water is nice and warm , you know you want to

Harry

Whatever you can get cheap bnut CS4 was a dog... so dont be tempted skip it.... I kept both CS3 and CS4 on the machine at the same time as I hated CS4...

Pixinsight is superb.. but I keep putting off buying it as somethign shinny always comes along instead...

Peter...

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PortableAstronomer

PortableAstronomer

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I've picked up the impression over the past couple of years that PS fans seem to have the more 'normal' skies, and PixInsight users tend to be more ´urban´ residents with more LP'd skies who share footage of their imaging/observing environment.

Put someone on the top of a mountain in Chile with a monster scope, and if that person just happens to use PS (which many of them will do) then over time this will deliver the ubiquitous (and possibly delusional) cult of ´wow PS must be the daddy of tools´ that we have today.

Regarding what can be pulled out from M42, even without wavelets, a couple of years ago I was using a 'Lite' version of Pixinsight that was a free distribution called Pixinsight LE. The commercial version of PixInsight was to be even better. Anyway you can see my imaging environment (time-skipped from a modified webcam on a tripod) with a Sony A300 and Nikon D70 DSLRS on the back of a scope in an urban car park, and the video recording of myself actually doing the processing.

Click here to watch the video --> http://www.blip.tv/file/2322230/

Remember this is M42 from the car park at Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford, with a near full moon and sports field floodlights next door.

The end result at the end of the video was modest/OK, but of course you will have seen other M42s that are much better than mine. But many similar quality results are produced by PS fans but these guys never show you their imaging environment or capture how they actually did it on video. Then when you look at their imaging environments and compare it to the hospital car park that I used, I became less and less impressed with their transformation abilities and their additction to PS seems more and more irrational to me.

Regarding use of GIMP - it's OK for blending layers together, but I would definately not recommend it (or anything with only 8-bit intensity depth) to perform histogram of any sort of intensity transformations. Once the images have been stretched using a different application with 16/32-bit depth per pixel, then the final touches can more suitably be done with programs that have the 8-bit depth. If I were to attempt any histogram functions to stretch the raw frames using GIMP then the results would look more 'blocky', and you would see an image built up with lots of rectangles because the intensity truncation on each pixel.

Having said that I still regard myself as a humble imager and there are people out there who know a lot more about wavelet processing than I do.

Clear skies. Hope September weather is a bit better than August ! :-)

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Bizibilder

Bizibilder

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Looks like I qualify for : "Adobe CS5 Photoshop Extended, Student and Teacher Version" at £165 on Amazon.

Is this a version to go for? Anyone tried it or qualify for it (It includes schoolkids in "qualifiers" so may be a good Chrissy Prezzy!)

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