DSS question

[Steve1976]

Hi gang!

After you've stacked all your frames together where do you guys usually do your post processing (such as mucking about with those curve thingys)? Do you just use DSS itself?

Tried changing the curves, saturation on there but I have absolutely no idea what I am doing!

It just seems that a single frame is better than anything I can stack and play around with.

[Astroblagger]

Here is a tutorial on how to process the image first in DSS then save as tiff and move it to photoshop for further processing.

Astronomy Shed UK Astronomy Forum • View topic - Superb Processing Tutorial

[simon hicks]

Hi Steve,

DSS is not really designed to do the post processing...it provides a few stretch features just to give you a quick look-see. The best thing to do is take the Autosave.tif file that DSS generates and read it into a processing package. Lots of people use Photoshop, I use PixInsight, others use AstroArt or MaximDL....and the list goes on.

Cheers

Simon

[davew]

Simon has it. Even DSS's writer has said on the DSS forum the prog is not intended to be used for post processing. Also mentioned in the DSS Wiki run by Sander Pool.

Dave.

[Steve1976]

Ok thanks a lot guys. What are the best freebies to use out there?

[themos]

IRIS is free-to-use, has a lot of algorithms implemented, has great tutorials but has an older-style user interface to it.

Iris software

[Steve1976]

Astroblagger that tutorial is fantastic cheers

[Steve1976]

Thanks Themos I'll be having a play around with that too shortly

[Steve1976]

Ok guys could do with your opinion here -

1st pic is an example of 17 single exposures I took. The second pic is the 17 all stacked together, no darks, and mucked about with on Iris. Does the 2nd pic look over processed? Any hints and tips on how to make it better? (I know the original image is rubbish anyway - I don't have a tripod here at the mo so had to lay the camera on a table and directly pointed upwards)

EDIT - ok having problems uploading right now will try again later

[themos]

Put the files on sendspace.com or similar and we can all have a play!

[Steve1976]

Will have a look into uploading it on there too Thermos but here it is for now...

1st is an example of single frame and second 17 stacked but with no darks -

Not sure how to crop the black uneven rim at the bottom and I think I've overdone the processing

EDIT - now that I've uploaded it it looks very green!!! Oh well first attempt

[themos]

You used IRIS for this? The tutorials explain how to restore a reasonable white balance and how to fix the uneven illumination. Btw, I still use DSS for the registering and stacking, even though IRIS can do that too.

[Steve1976]

Yeah it needs a lotta work! Gonna give it another try