Some of you my know that I’ve been very much a Siril user and a big believer in free software. With the addition of the great tools in SASpro and scripting in Siril I felt like I had everything I might possibly need to create good images and as long as I was shooting OSC, that was pretty much the case. Once I made the switch to mono though, everything changed. Because I was using Siril as my main processing program I had to parse out all the different files into different processing folders and treating each color as a different project. Those of you who use Siril will know what I’m talking about. It is a lot of work and prone to error if you’re not paying attention. So, out of curiosity, I evaluated PI again and this time, it was a revelation. Let me layout why in the hopes that others like me might at least have a better idea of why people like PI so much.
The first important thing to realize is that PI is an astrophotography work-station, not just a straight line processing program. It’s designed from the ground up to handle lots of files and complicated workflows. The first time I just dumped all my files from multiple sessions into a single folder and told the weighted batch preprocessor to start, I was amazed to see all my data, sorted, calibrated, cropped, aligned, stacked and ready to go, I couldn’t stop smiling. What would have taken me an afternoon of endless clicking was done in half an hour.
The other impressive thing is the efficiency and elegance of the interface. I know a lot is made of PI being super hard to figure out and and very unfriendly but I found it was just the opposite. Sure, there are some basic things to learn but once you do, you’ll see the logic in it. If you get stumped, everything has a tool tip and deeper questions are easily answered with a Google query. The other neat trick is there are four screens or workspaces. You can iconize your most used processes and save the whole arrangement in the middle of your workflow, images and all for instant recall later.
The last thing I’ll mention is that the tools are very refined. Even the basic background extraction tool is anything but basic. If you’re wondering about BlurX, all I can say is, just get it. I have tried Cosmic Clarity, Syqon and all the other tools out there and nothing works as well for reducing stars and bringing out detail. Period, full-stop. I’ve struggled with them all and it’s not even close.
BlurX aside, the bottom line is, if you shoot OSC and keep a fairy simple workflow then you can certainly live without PI. We have great developers out there cranking out amazing free tools. That said, if you shoot mono or OSC with complicated workflows, PI will improve the speed and quality of your work.
