Photoshop with Pixinsight?

I've been using Pixinsight for nearly a year and despite its complexity, or maybe because of it, I feel my images are improving. I've just downloaded Photoshop in order to create a custom background in Stellarium, with the original idea of stopping the subscription after the 2 week trial. But I see many images on Astrobin are a result of using both PI and PS and I'm now wondering if I should keep the subscription. I'd be interested to know what people are using PS for, and where in the workflow it's used.

Frank

I recently added PS to my processing workflow and more specifically to the last steps of it (only used PI so far) and the only thing that it seems that PS-so far-does much better than PI, is color manipulation/enhancement. Better color masks/color vibrance/saturation etc and by better I mean more "natural" and vibrant colors than PI's color saturation/curves/color mask processes & scripts. Also another point for PS is that it is easier-judging by my experience-to create selective masks.

I believe that is is worth having both tools because that there are things that one tool is better than the other. That said, PI is more focused in AP and I still consider it a better one-for-all tool.

I sometimes use Photoshop for final touches on an image - it has some better (well, faster) tools for cropping to certain aspect ratios and such, which is good for me since I sell prints on occasion. I also find it easier to add my signature in PS as well.

However, the main use of PS for me during processing is mask creation. Pix has some decent tools, but if I'm trying to spot correct a certain portion of a photo (maybe I had color fringing on one corner due to collimation being slightly out or I want to target only larger stars in a star mask to reduce their blooming) I can quickly port a black & white image copy (or Starnet-mask) to photoshop and brush out the portions I don't want. Closest Pix has that I know of is clone stamp and it can be useful, but PS is still quicker

PI is an amazing tool but there are just some things that PS does better. I always use PS for the very last steps in my processing. It makes it easy to adjust color balance at different brightness levels, layers are incredibly useful, and shadow/highlight control is super easy. Most of my processing in PS is minor but it’s that last 5% that can make the difference between a good image and a great image. I can’t imagine processing an image without PI—or PS!

John

More or less the same answer as the others: final retouching, final crop, creating different sizes of images - sometimes different file formats, creating timelapses and animated gifs and I have some usefull photoshop actions, mainly for star reduction. 90+x% PI + PS is a good combination. Whether it's worth the subscription is hard to tell. You may be able to do a lot of this with a free tool like GIMP. I have the subscription anyway because I use Lightroom and PS for my daytime photography since they exist. So for me it's a no-brainer.

Clear skies
Wolfgang

I use both PI and PS. I do most of the initial processing in PI
Here is a general example
PI:
1- Dynamic Crop
2- Background extraction (automatic or dynamic- depending on the situation)
3- Color calibration (I seldom use photometric color calibration because I think it washes out a lot of the color)
4- Stretch
5- Noise reduction (TGV and ACDNR work well for me)
6- Start reduction
7- HDR and Local Histogram equalization (depending on the image, I may do just 1 or both)
8- Color saturation and management (Curves trasformation)

At this point I move to PS and do additional processing, mainly using the Camera Raw Filter, a few additional level and curve adjustments using masks and additional noise reduction (also masking selected areas).

I sometimes go back and forth between PI and PS when images have a lot of noise or need more fine tuning for contrast and color enhancement

My overall assessment is that PI and PS are complementary and one is not just enough. The camera raw filter of PS is s superb tool. I also have several astronomy processing Plug ins such as: Astronomy action tools, Annie Astro actions, ClariSKY, EasyNR, and MiniSTARS. They are available for a very reasonable price and can be used in certain situations. I really like Annie Astro and EasyNR

I hope this is useful information
Clear skies,
Alicia

You might also consider Affinity Photo instead of Photoshop. It does everything that PhotoShop does, and also has a large number of astrophotography specific processing macros. Even better, for less than 6 months of PhotoShop rental fees you would own Affinity Photo. There's a free trial available on the Affinity web site.

Ken Bates:
You might also consider Affinity Photo instead of Photoshop. It does everything that PhotoShop does, and also has a large number of astrophotography specific processing macros. Even better, for less than 6 months of PhotoShop rental fees you would own Affinity Photo. There's a free trial available on the Affinity web site.

Thanks Ken, I'll check it out

I use Photoshop for the final touches of processing doing most of the processing in PI. I used to think that I was using PS as a crutch until I got more experience with PI, but PS had some amazing tools.

The Camera Raw Filter is where I do most of the work. The Camera Raw Filter is a very powerful set of tools.
Basic processing has lots of tools that can quickly add huge benifits to the final image. There is a histogram image right above the controls which is super handy.

I am continually impressed with Pixinsight, but really appreciate the awesome touch-up power of Photoshop.

Jim

Photoshop can do certain things better than PI so I use it too. Most of my images either use APP, PI, and Photoshop or APP and Photoshop.

That depends entirely on your preferences, if you like PS keep the subscription.

Personally I always do the finishing touches in PS, I like being able to have a different adjustment on a separate layer and being able to combine them in different ways.

Alicia Rossiter:
I use both PI and PS. I do most of the initial processing in PI
Here is a general example
PI:
1- Dynamic Crop
2- Background extraction (automatic or dynamic- depending on the situation)
3- Color calibration (I seldom use photometric color calibration because I think it washes out a lot of the color)
4- Stretch
5- Noise reduction (TGV and ACDNR work well for me)
6- Start reduction
7- HDR and Local Histogram equalization (depending on the image, I may do just 1 or both)
8- Color saturation and management (Curves trasformation)

At this point I move to PS and do additional processing, mainly using the Camera Raw Filter, a few additional level and curve adjustments using masks and additional noise reduction (also masking selected areas).

I sometimes go back and forth between PI and PS when images have a lot of noise or need more fine tuning for contrast and color enhancement

My overall assessment is that PI and PS are complementary and one is not just enough. The camera raw filter of PS is s superb tool. I also have several astronomy processing Plug ins such as: Astronomy action tools, Annie Astro actions, ClariSKY, EasyNR, and MiniSTARS. They are available for a very reasonable price and can be used in certain situations. I really like Annie Astro and EasyNR

I hope this is useful information
Clear skies,
Alicia

*** Hello, i was wonder are you moving files in jpeg or tiff?***

Davide Mancini:
*** Hello, i was wonder are you moving files in jpeg or tiff?***

If you are asking if the file needs to be a jpeg or tiff file for PS to open, I believe yes. PS will not open a fits file on it's own, but there is a PS plugin called
Fits-Liberator that will let you open fits files in PS. My point here (a bit late) is that I don't use PI, PS is good enough for me, but you don't need to buy the PSCC subscription as everyone seems to think. I'm sure there are a lot of people that have upgraded to PSCC and have the hard copy of PSCS5 or CS6 just laying around. I'm sure you could find a copy for just $100-$200 US if you looked, and they will work just as good as PSCC without the subscription.

Just a thought if you want to use both PI and PS.

Have you considered Lightroom instead? Photoshop has a lot of overlap with PI when it comes to what you can do with it. I tend to use Lightroom for a final touchups. It gives you very good control over color balancing, selective sharpening etc.

As a then PS user I downloaded PI about 10 years ago and was completely hooked from the start. Since then I have never used any other software for processing astroimages. Horses for courses I guess.

I use SIRIL instead of PI and put the final touches in PS.

SIRIL:
Stacking + Auto Strech + BGE + (PCC, if it's a DSLR I'm using) + Remove green noise etc.
After this I use StarNett2 and Strech in PS, then Topaz De Noise and finally PS to adjust the different layers in Ha, SII, OIII etc.

I thought my pre-process this year has improved quite a bit and if I didn't have SIRIL I would be back to the stone age in my pre-process.
I love SIRIL and am really happy that there is competition within astro software….
Merry Christmas to everyone.

Morian

I have taken Adam Block’s training for Ps. It is a big help for a difficult program to master. Having said that, I find Ps helpful at the end of processing to correct stuff with paint brush, smudge, and other tricks. Camera roll is a great tool. Oh, and I think the best of Ps is it helps me balance Histograms. So, as a beginner in this fascinating “hobby/pastime”, learning and using Ps is a great part of the total experience of AP.

Frank,

I do stack in Astro Pixel Processor (much faster and less temporary data sizes than in PI), then BlurXterminator and GHS2 in PI.

Post the linear state I do my entire processing in Photoshop - it is so much faster, easier and simpler than PI.

CS
Chris

PI and PS are both involved in the post-processing - I wouldn't call it "flow" - nothing fixed.

For PS, for quick tests of layer blending options, hue adjustments, masked touch-ups… I prefer to use it as I feel it would be more efficient than PI. Not only at the final stage.

I would say both PI and PS are important.

CS
-Min

My two cents:
Pixinsight is THE tool for pre-processing of astronomical images. At least, as long as we're talking about deep sky. Deep-sky-specific tasks imply a lot of particular statistical methods, and PI offers tool kits for exactly that purpose, enabling the user to apply them on a very mathemathical level.
Some things work(ed) rather unhandy in Pixinsight, like denoise or star masks. These steps however belong to post processing, and some use much less of a scientific approach, more like typical image processing techniques. There are things i prefer doing in PI, like color calibration, stretching, denoise. For final touchup i sometimes use PS, and/or LR. Especially if there are cosmetic issues. A thing i also find very difficult in PI is color adjustment.

I'm usually trying to stay linear (i.e. PI) as long as possible, and only do the final steps in LR. My "flow" ends somewhere after stretching, and is followed by some "freestyle". I'm happy i did the step towards PS & LR, it is much more intuitive to handle. However, i couldn't do without PI. Looking forward to some clear skies next week, to capture C/2022 E3, i wonder how our comet images would look like without PI. Some day, hopefully there will be some tools for landscape astro stacking, too.

CS Horst

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