RE: [APML] Registar or PW

["Jon Kolb" <jkolb@datawest.net>]

Scott,

> I would like to solicit some feedback on which piece of software you
consider the best 
> for compositing images,
> Registar or Picture Window.  Please include information about Picture
Window and Picture > Window Pro. Thanks.

As others have said, Registar is far better at automating the process.
What it lacks, however, are the numerous options for how the images are
combined.  You can't do an "Add" in Registar, for instance.  Also, the
PW "Subtract" and "Filter" composite options can be helpful for
anti-vignetting processing, and as Matt mentioned, the "Blend" option
allows you to weight the contribution of images in PW.  You also can't
use masks in Registar, but you can create masked images in another
program and combine them later.  PW also is a pretty full-featured image
enhancement application (curves, saturation, masking, etc.), while
Registar is only used for compositing, but this may not matter to you if
you already have PS or another image processing application.

In short, there are advantages to both, depending on what you expect to
do.  For simple stacking to reduce grain and enhance nebulosity,
Registar wins because of its rapid, automatic algorithm.  For more
sophisticated operations that you can do in one program, PW wins because
of its much wider range of composting options and image processing
tools.  Registar is somewhat more expensive than PW Pro as I recall (I
wouldn't consider regular PW - it has a limitation in the number of
registration points allowed). 

The best of both worlds would be if I could register images in Registar,
and then combine them in PW, but I haven't figured out how to do that
one yet.

Sincerely,
Jon Kolb
Adventures in Astrophotography
http://home.datawest.net/jkolb/
jkolb@datawest.net
719-330-3160

 
 



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