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For what steps do you use Affinity Photo?

Serif Affinity Photo Processing Stacking
Affinity Photo for Astrophotography users •5 replies•228 views
What functions do you use? (Please post to this thread if I'm missing some steps)
Multiple choice poll 38 votes
13% (5 votes)
13% (5 votes)
26% (10 votes)
47% (18 votes)
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Björn Arnold avatar
Björn Arnold avatar
Hi,

I opened this group since I noticed that quite some people are using Serif's Affinity Photo for Astrophotography. Especially, since it includes a stacking functionality (including the FITS file format) it seems to hold the capability of a full Astrophotography processing workflow.

With this poll, I'd like to ask the functions you are (more or less regularly) using if you are a doing AP.

CS!

Björn
Prea avatar
Prea avatar
Hi Björn
I use APP for initial stacking and then bring image in to Affinity Photo for final process. I then use TOPAZ  labs software for final image tweak's.
Peter
Prea)
Michael Bate avatar
Michael Bate avatar
Hi,

I’ve used AP for about a year now for post processing only, including some third party plugins. I register and stack my images in DSS first mainly because my machine struggled with performance so have not tried APs stacking feature yet. I recently upgraded my RAM + processor so might use AP for the full workflow as a trial run on my next dataset but if I’m honest, I haven’t seen anyone who does so don’t have any benchmark to compare against…

Thanks
Michael
Tommy Mastro avatar
Tommy Mastro avatar
AFF is also very good at HDR integration.  I used it for M42 and it came out so much better than my non-HDR version, despite same total integration time.
Tommy Mastro avatar
Tommy Mastro avatar
Michael Bate:
Hi,

I’ve used AP for about a year now for post processing only, including some third party plugins. I register and stack my images in DSS first mainly because my machine struggled with performance so have not tried APs stacking feature yet. I recently upgraded my RAM + processor so might use AP for the full workflow as a trial run on my next dataset but if I’m honest, I haven’t seen anyone who does so don’t have any benchmark to compare against...

Thanks
Michael

Michael,

What APP 3rd party plug-ins do you use?  Can you provide some web links?  I would be greatly appreciative.  I've always been jealous that PS users have so many plug-in options.

Thanks,
Tommy
Michael Bate avatar
Michael Bate avatar
Tommy:
Michael Bate:
Hi,

I’ve used AP for about a year now for post processing only, including some third party plugins. I register and stack my images in DSS first mainly because my machine struggled with performance so have not tried APs stacking feature yet. I recently upgraded my RAM + processor so might use AP for the full workflow as a trial run on my next dataset but if I’m honest, I haven’t seen anyone who does so don’t have any benchmark to compare against...

Thanks
Michael

Michael,

What APP 3rd party plug-ins do you use?  Can you provide some web links?  I would be greatly appreciative.  I've always been jealous that PS users have so many plug-in options.

Thanks,
Tommy

Yeah of course. AP is becoming more tuned to astrophotography and there's more plug-ins becoming available. 

I use three main ones:
1. James Ritsons astrophotography macros. These are free and he regularly updates them (on v12 now / enter 0 into buy box to get for free). They are a huge help to have astrophotography operations pre built. Everything from image combination, to adjustments to sharpening macros. The download also includes a detailed user guide and links to a youtube how to vid. He offers macrls for both 32bit and 16bit processing. 

https://jamesritson.co.uk/resources.html#astrophotography

2.  Russel Cromans StarXterminator and GradientXterminator. These are hugely popular and the quality of the output shows why. Fantastic tools for star removal (so you can process DSOs without the hassle of trying to avoid blowing out stars, instead adding them in later), and fantastic gradient removal and rgb background calibration. These are both licensable plugins but come with a 7 day free trial each, so id recommend checking them out. They  only work in 16bit space though so i have to convert to 16bit to use which is personal preference whether that's a problem.

https://www.rc-astro.com/resources/index.html

I can also see Russel is developing a Noise Xterminator plugin too but it's only available for pixinsight for now, with AP plugin coming later.

Hope this helps!

Michael
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