PixInsite Confession

Habib Sekha · Mar 14, 2026, 01:50 AM

Tony Gondola · Mar 13, 2026 at 10:09 PM

The other neat trick is there are four screens or workspaces

You can create many more workspaces if required.

You might or might not have discovered that you can give each workspace its own name.

Have lots of fun and success with PI, Tony!

Thanks for the tips. I didn’t know any of that!

Yup, it can be done but as you know, it’s very labor intensive.

Tony Gondola · Mar 13, 2026 at 10:09 PM

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.

This year a number of sophisticated tools/scripts have been added to which definitely makes it every bit as good and easier to use. PI with its plugins would cost more that I paid for my smart telescope, SIRIL is free.

I wholeheartedly agree with this post. I was hesitant to jump into PI at first as well- mainly because of the price and the reputation of its steep learning curve.

Without going into painful detail, all I can really say is that the program -along with the RC plugins- has proven to be worth every penny for me. Yes, the learning curve can be real at times, but honestly, when I first started out I found Siril and other free alternatives just as confusing. That’s obviously subjective, which is why I always emphasize the “for me” part.

I still use Siril from time to time, especially for the Seestar stacking script, so I’m definitely not looking down on it- it’s a great piece of software. At this point in my astrophotography journey, though, I simply find that a PixInsight workflow fits the way my brain works.

Clear skies everyone!

Thanks for this post! I’ve been using Siril for about 3 years now and my images are OSC so this was the motivation I needed to start transitioning over to PI and give it a go!

I would agree with all that. Siril is and will remain in the toolbox if for no other reason that you can do quick stacks, well, so quickly. I’m so much in the habit of setting up data folders the Siril way that it’s no problem to do that.

I also feel that when going to PI, as with any complex software, it really helps to have a have a good bit of knowledge conerning what tool you need, when and why. With that background you can just learn the interface you can take off from there. That huge list of processes and scripts would be hard to deal with if you didn’t.

Morian · Mar 21, 2026, 05:29 PM

Whether you use SIRIL, PI or something else to process your data depends on how good you are at post processing at the end and how many tips and tricks you know.
That's my experience after 8+ years in this hobby.

I think that’s largely true. I’ve been reprocessing some old work (but not too old). PI has made a difference in 2 areas:

Speed and simplicity of processing complex data sets.

The use of BlurX which gives most of the quality boost, mainly with stars. I simply had never found a workflow outside of BlurX that can replicate that.

I’m sure there are other things that I just haven’t used yet but that’s my impression so far.

Tony Gondola · Mar 21, 2026, 06:56 PM

Jeffrey Kieft · Mar 21, 2026, 05:41 PM

Morian · Mar 21, 2026, 05:29 PM

Whether you use SIRIL, PI or something else to process your data depends on how good you are at post processing at the end and how many tips and tricks you know.
That's my experience after 8+ years in this hobby.

100% agree.

"It's not the plane, it's the pilot"

- Top Gun: Maverick

😀

Maverick might not agree if you put an F-35 up against an F-16…

Straight into the danger zone

You guys will have to enlighten me because I’m new to PI and WBPP was one of the things I was most impressed with. What’s wrong with using it and what should I really be doing?