Astral Imaging at Dogwood Ridge Observatory

Latitude: 37°48'51.0" N"
Longitude:78°23'41.0"W
Scottsville, Virginia 24590

 

(click on thumbnails to go to that image's page)

 

 

 

 

   

Pix Insight
A New User's Experience

From the onset, I think you'll find that Pix Insight (PI) is a very different program. So much so that it may even discourage you from investigating thoroughly this very feature packed image processing software but that would be a mistake in my humble opinion. You can see for yourself by downloading the program and requesting a 45 day free trial. It has all the tools one could possibly need, less maybe bloom repair, with more, including bloom repair, on it's to do list. As of this writing there is no official written manual and for me, that's OK. Most wouldn't read much of it anyway. What is readily available are tutorials and videos demonstrating how to use certain functions of the software. One collection by Harry Page will cover the most basic tools in PI and get you well on your way. He also has a selection of advanced videos. Craig Stark of Stark Labs also has a few on his website. And then of course there are the official tutorials on PI's website found here. On this page you'll see on the right column that under resources are listed links for the video tutorials, processing examples, tutorials, and the image gallery. Blow that further down is a link to the PI user's forum which offers a great deal of assistance in answering your processing questions or general questions. You'll likely get answers from the PI Team members themselves as they monitor the forum. There is also the unofficial users guide compiled by Rogelio Bernal Andreo.

In short, there's plenty of help available even despite the lack of somewhat hard to understand manuals. I find manuals great for looking up specific questions but not so great for general reading. I also think that most will ask questions for assistance before reading or understanding a manual if there is an active and helpful forum available. I see this with many software specific forums now and those software have manuals.

Enough about the lack of a manual. In a short period of time and a dozen or so downloaded video tutorials, I've managed to get a fairly basic routine down that rivals the other software I have used in the past. Further experience will only increase my processing ability. Using the resources available to you for Pix Insight will be a great help.

 

Pix Insight
A New User's Quick Start Experience
 

The following pages listed in the order of how I use Pix Insight, show you my workflow and some basic settings to get you started. They also have links to various videos for their respective topic. These and other resources can be found on the listed resource page link.

 

Aligning Your Data

Image Integration

Cropping the Combined Image

Applying Dynamic Background Extraction

Applying Histogram Transformation

Using HDRWavelet Transform on Your Images

Using Deconvolution on Your Images

Using Deconvolution on Your Images
The Proper Method by Juan Conejero

My Image Processing Workflow

PI Resources

 

 

 

    
  Last Modified :01/23/09 12:40 AM