PIMagic for PixInsight and Photoshop Users - Forums

I came across this tool a few days before its launch, which appears to have been in early January 2026.

Intro video:
https://youtu.be/AmfaJXUuuWY?si=lm9TwX99tRnjiISU

More information here:
https://pimagicstudio.com/

PIMagic is essentially a workflow automation tool designed to speed up common post-processing tasks. There is one set of tools for PixInsight and another for Photoshop. The stated aim is to remove some of the repetitive work involved in astrophotography processing, allowing you to spend more time on the creative steps.

I have not purchased it myself, but after watching the intro video it actually inspired me to move part of my processing back into Photoshop. I had forgotten how flexible and non-destructive levels, curves, and colour adjustments can be there when used well.

I thought this might be worth mentioning for anyone who finds PixInsight’s adjustment controls or overall complexity frustrating at times. One thing to note is that PIMagic relies on several other tools from the RC Astro collection, so it is not entirely standalone.

Hopefully useful for anyone considering ways to streamline their workflow.

The Pixinsight part looks like yet another tool that will lead to fried images…

Automatic gradient extraction? Will lead to artifacts, extracted nebulosity/galactic halos. This is something you NEED manual supervision for.

Automatic blurx? Sometimes you might not need blurx at all since your target is very diffuse or faint, and often you need to be careful not to overdo it and turn your galaxy into a bunch of worms. It’s not like there’s a golden setting that will work on any image.

Automatic denoise? Same as blurx. I’m assuming it just blasts the image with denoise at 100% on default? If so, that’s awful, there are enough overdenoised images as is.

Stretching is also something you should do manually but I guess the idea here is to do that in PS after some kind of autostretch. Which btw I believe they use unlinked STF from what I gather from the tooltip… which just defeats the purpose of calibrating the colors in the first place.

The only step I agree can be done automatically is SPCC. The rest is just pointless in my opinion. I see there’s an advanced mode which presumably allows for the exact same controls as the standalone tools, but as I said, most of them would require you to check the result after each step.

The Photoshop part looks actually neat on the other hand, though I can’t really tell how useful it is because I don’t use Photoshop very often. The automatic import looks like a great QoL.