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PixInsight

Photosbykev

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Photosbykev

Photosbykev

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holy hell there's a steep learning curve lol Even with tutorials it's making my head hurt bigtime

I thought I would d/load the trial and see if it was more 'capable' than DSS. With DSS you can literally throw your lights/darks/flats at it and it will give you something fairly quickly. I'm still struggling to save a file with PixInsight let alone register images, apply darks/flats and then process it.

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Trevor-Austin

Trevor-Austin

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Hmmm,

The fact that it is hard to learn and complicated and expensive sadly doesn't prove its good. In 30 years of computer software that is one fact I've learned!

In fact in my experience the best, most powerful software is often the most intuitive and logical as it has been written well. None of those describe my experience with pixinsight.

I would say it is so over complicated and process driven that I ahve given up on it and I'm pretty good with software nornally. I what to enjoy everything to do with my hobby, not struggle too much with it, I can use SAP for that :)

So I'll be sticking with DSS and the other tools recommended to me. Not had to look at a manual or video for any of them and although my results aren't good they sure give me pleasure and satisfaction.

Just my opinion, you don't have to agree:)

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Photosbykev

Photosbykev

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Hmmm,

The fact that it is hard to learn and complicated and expensive sadly doesn't prove its good. In 30 years of computer software that is one fact I've learned!

In fact in my experience the best, most powerful software is often the most intuitive and logical as it has been written well. None of those describe my experience with pixinsight.

I would say it is so over complicated and process driven that I ahve given up on it and I'm pretty good with software nornally. I what to enjoy everything to do with my hobby, not struggle too much with it, I can use SAP for that :)

So I'll be sticking with DSS and the other tools recommended to me. Not had to look at a manual or video for any of them and although my results aren't good they sure give me pleasure and satisfaction.

Just my opinion, you don't have to agree:)

I would call myself very computer literate and I've built my own computers since the days of the 286 processor and DOS and at the moment the only neat feature I've found is the wavelet function, that worked straight out the box :D It does stack images very well but adding darks/flats is ummm difficult lol. I'll give it until the trial expires before I commit myself to it.

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harry page

harry page

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Hi

I will admit the calibration module is not as friendly as it should be :p and because I use sx cameras I do not use darks so I use AA4 for my calibration.:(

Pixinsight is excellent at registering and more than excellent at stacking with image weighing and a multiple selection of sigma rejection routines for you to use.

But as said earlier Pixinsight is more than a stacking program it the tools within ie like the killer apps like DBE / Wavlets / noise reduction

and many more .

Learning any software takes time , do not expect to learn it in a hour but IMO it is not more complicated than photoshop ;) ( feel free to disagree) .

I also like learning things ( like software ) it is part of the fun for me , nobody ever said astrophotography was easy and I am glad it is not :D

All this is of course just my opinion :)

Regards Harry

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SteveL

SteveL

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What we need is a programmer to be told by a non-programmer to write a new front end to control the real PI front end to control all those dastardly complex maths related procedures...

... or wait for the next PI major release which will have the help file system added, as mentioned recently on the PI forums. That will certainly improve the usability, and flatten that near vertical learning curve for new users.

Oh, and every new user gets a free Harry Page in every box :)

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harry page

harry page

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No absolutely not, but it does mean it's been written by programmers with little thought for interface or users.

I have never found the interface a problem :p It seems to more of a problem when people have used other packages mainely photoshop :D If we take this to the extreme does it mean everything has to look like photoshop to be good ;),

Of course All this irrelevant if you do not like it , the choice is yours :)

Harry

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harry page

harry page

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What we need is a programmer to be told by a non-programmer to write a new front end to control the real PI front end to control all those dastardly complex maths related procedures...

... or wait for the next PI major release which will have the help file system added, as mentioned recently on the PI forums. That will certainly improve the usability, and flatten that near vertical learning curve for new users.

Oh, and every new user gets a free Harry Page in every box :D

Well I don't know if I can manage free , but I might stretch to a BOGOF deal :)

Harry

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RustyM

RustyM

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I've been using Pix exclusively for little less than a year now....but I've been working in it for more than three :) I'm not much for prose, so forgive me if I just ramble....

Unlike most processing software, Pix is not process driven. It is a collection of tools and when, what, how, where you use them is entirely up to you. I.e. "Where to start ?" is a null question. This total lack of flow can be a real nightmare until you understand that there is a total lack of flow :D

Pix is not Photoshop. I spent many confused months thinking Pix was image processing or image manipulation software. This made things very frustrating as I kept trying to get Pix to work in ways it does not work. I've found thinking of Pix as data processing software very helpful (it might seem like just semantics, but helpful none the less) in learning to use Pix the way Pix wants to be used...All software works the way it works, never how you want it to work or how you expect it to work. I blame software designers and programers, myself included, for this failing.

Pix has some of the most powerful tools you will find and some you find nowhere else. Learning each tool is the real trick....

My advice would be this:

- DO your calibrations in DDS or CCD Stack or other.

Pix can do them quite nicely, but it is more of a math exercise than a process. Don't start here with Pix....you will be looking for a puppy to kill in less than 30 seconds.

With your stacked frames...

- Understand the screen transfer tool and how previews work.

- Explore the histogram tool.

- Explore the noise reduction tools.

- Explore the LRGB combine tool.

- Explore the color curves tool.

- Explore PixelMath.

- Explore the Star Mask generation tool and masking in general.

- Explore wavelets and how they can be used to bring out structural details.

- Do some of the tutorials with supplied data and try and make your results as good or better than the results in the tutorial.

Use Pix in your process not as your process and you will find yourself using the tool more and more.

The juice is worth the squeeze.

Rusty

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dlp

dlp

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I must admit I'm a PI convert. I never used dss much as I'm new to the hobby and looked around at the buzz on what was 'best'. It is pretty fearsome to start with and the bit that should be easiest (cal/stack) is pretty dire in the current version. For a fairly new program it's excellent. Believe me, you wouldn't have wanted to use Photoshop 2 and adobe have poured millions at it since then.

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Trevor-Austin

Trevor-Austin

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I have never found the interface a problem :( It seems to more of a problem when people have used other packages mainely photoshop :D If we take this to the extreme does it mean everything has to look like photoshop to be good ;),

Of course All this irrelevant if you do not like it , the choice is yours :)

Harry

not at all. I don't particularly like photoshop. I just expect to pick up software and be able to work out how to use it. I love the results, and the video tutorials are very, very detailed and useful, but I'm an impatient sort of guy:)

I think the lack of a defined process to work through makes it more flexible, obviously duh!, but makes it much harder to use. There isn't a simple flowchart you could describe to say start here and end here by means of doing these things. Or at least I can't really find it in a way I'm used to.

Actually not trying to knock it, just think it could have a massively wider appeal if the front end was redesigned by somebody used to designing user friendly front ends (that is not me by the way :p )

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Sam

Sam

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Kev, like already mentioned a lot of people still use DSS and do the rest of the processing with PixInsight. That's what I do as well, I haven't found the stacking process in PixInsight as easy to use as DSS but for the rest of the job iit's fantastic. The user interface is pretty easy use once you get your head around the way it works.:)

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Euan

Euan

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I still use DSS for stacking, but all my post processing is done in PI. The stacking in PI isn't quite there yet for me, but I'm sure it will be eventually, it's constantly moving forward

It does take a while to get used to the interface, but once you see how it works you realise why it's designed the way it is

Those strange ways of doing things become invaluable when you have multiple images, multiple processes, all interacting with each other

At one point when you are using it things just click together and it all makes perfect sense. Watch all the videos you can on it, I downloaded Harrys and the ones from the site and I've watched them several times

You have to really work on learning it, it won't spoon feed you, but the results are more than worth it

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