Re: [APML] Widefield Comet Machholz

The Histogram process don't just show it. You'll be able to fully explore the histogram of a image. See it at the resolution (8, 10, 12 and 16bits) and zoom (1 to 99, vertical or horizontal) you want. Adjust the black and white points, the midtones balance, etc. Becouse of the working 32bits of inner accuracy, you'll not get any spikes in your histogram (i.e. merging of levels due rounding errors) even at highly agressive changes. Just see the article I wrote about film flat fielding...

The Curves process also isn't just another curves window... here you can zoom it for greater accuracy too! Also there are three new channels to adjust: Luminance, Hue and Saturation. The H and S curves work only with the chrominance data, unchanging the image's brightness. Again, due the 32bits, you don't have to worry with rounding errors... you can apply as many curves adjustements you want. Forget those tricks we used to prevent posterization.

Changing the subject, Wavelets are a powerfull tool to isolate high frecuency noise, attack and reduce it. This helps a lot as a previous step to SGBNR, wich becomes by far more easy to adjust. And that isn't all... you can use wavelets as a substitute for unsharp masking. In fact, with wavelets you can do much better things at higher scales, becouse you'll not affecting other features, like noise. Another goo use for wavelets is well known with planetary webcam images and pics of the moon.

And the final note... don't forget other processes like PixelMath. It allows to apply a lot variety of techniques: flat fielding, dark substractions, SMI, "layer masking", average images, unsharp masking, and much more.

I have "bad news". The standard editions will be delayed at least half a year (expect another year...). The reason: Juan had to rewrite all the code becouse of problems with the compiller, and PI needed a big foundation's reesctructuration. Now he is working in the API, a modular system that will allow the users to write in C++ code theyr own processes and plug them into PixInsight. PI will be a completelly modular system, and that include also the way it manages the file formats... And as an preview of it, Juan created something called PCL (PixInsight Class Library), to create command line like programs, using all the algorithms PI has. He created a first beta program using the PCL, that he called "R", and automatizates the registration of deep sky images. Right now it works very well with images intended for integration purposes (multi scans, series, color channels, etc.), but has some problems with mosaics and images taked with very different setups... expect a RegiSt ar alternative fully implemented to PixInsight in the following months <vbg>.

Other than that, there is a large To-Do list, containing a lot of new processes we want to include... Juan wants to make things good, without haste. So, meanwhile, explore the LE release and fully explode it's capabilities. STD will be much more than that, but under the same user interfase.