PixInsight Beginner's Tutorial! - Part 2: LRGB M51 - Free Data Provided

Welcome to the second part of my new series to try and help people get off to a flying start in PixInsight! - Come process along with me during this tutorial and learn by doing.
If you found this useful please consider supporting me and the channel either via KZbin Membership or Patreon! :-)
/ @lukomatico
/ lukomatico
NEW! : Affiliate link for RC astro! - HUGE thanks to Russell Croman! :-)
If you choose to use any of these links you'll be helping me out at no additional cost to yourself!
BlurXTerminator -
www.rc-astro.com/resources/Bl...
StarXTerminator -
www.rc-astro.com/resources/St...
NoiseXTerminator -
www.rc-astro.com/resources/No...
You will need the following -
1: PixInsight (installed & updated)
2: EZ-Processing suite (new location) - elveteek.ch/pixinsight-update...
3: Either Starnet2 (free)
www.starnetastro.com/download/
or StarXterminator (paid software)
www.rc-astro.com/resources/St...
4: The data and Toolset - drive.google.com/file/d/1vInp...
5: OPTIONAL - at one point in the vid you will see me using "adv-sharpen" scripts, you can skip this step or install the scripts from this repository - www.skypixels.at/pixinsight_sc...
Huge thanks to my good friend Bill Blanshan for providing these great tools for us all! - find his channel here - / @anotherastrochannel2173
Thank you!
AFFILIATE LINKS!!
Topaz Denoise, Gigapixel & Sharpen AI are some of my favorite software to aid in astro and terrestrial image processing! If you buy the software through this link I would receive a commission at zero extra cost to yourself!
Topaz Labs Affiliate Link! - topazlabs.com/ref/1133/
Amazon Affiliate Links! - Anything you buy through one of these links will give me a small commission at no extra cost to yourself!
Amazon UK - amzn.to/3EOCgpV
Amazon US - amzn.to/3quGPlD
High Point Scientific Affiliate Links!
High Point Scientific Affiliate Link - www.highpointscientific.com/?...
Orion Telescopes & Binoculars Affiliate links!
www.pjatr.com/t/R0FHSUdKTEFGS...
www.pntrs.com/t/S0BMQ0pFQEVHR...
www.pntrs.com/t/R0JJSEVIS0ZCR...
Timestamps:

[@lukomatico]

For anyone missing the "ADV sharpening" script, my bad! - It's not included baseline with Pix, instead it's available free from this page's repository, instructions on the page : www.skypixels.at/pixinsight_scripts.html Cheers!

[@AdamBlock]

Nice job explaining Luke. Concerning DBE- you might consider after you do the first DBE on the luminance (or whatever)- drag an instance of your DBE process to the desktop. Since the images are registered- using the same samples/settings/positions will likely be fine (rather than reselect them all). In addition, DBE works on each color channel individually. So, if you make the linear RGB image first with channel combination- you will not need to do apply DBE to each frame- just to the single RGB image (using the samples from the Luminance).

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Adam! - Man, that's a really fantastic set of tips, thank you so much for taking the time to educate - I do genuinely appreciate it! 🙏 I hope you've got a super weekend ahead mate, Clear skies!!

[@SiskiyouForest]

Came here to say this 👍🏻

[@geldingmakr]

@@SiskiyouForest Same 🙂

[@brianwatson3435]

I'm new to PixInsight. Can you not just drag the instance to the other 3 files while DBE is still open with the settings for the luminance layer?

[@AdamBlock]

@@brianwatson3435 It takes two seconds to try both ways... and then see why I suggested as I did!! (one way recalculates the values at each sample... the other uses the previous calculated values... which of course is not what is desired)

[@bryandootson4011]

Thanks Luke I love the croggaly detail in the core of m51! Great video as usual, don’t burn yourself out! Take care Bryan

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much Bryan!! - I'll be sure to take some time to chill soon haha! :-) Cheers for watching mate!

[@interiordronesCA]

Loving this series! I've done many of the available pixinsight tutorials and yours are by far the best (at least for me). You're a great teacher, and the audio is very well done... background music included.

[@lukomatico]

Aw mate, thank you!! - that's really wonderful to hear :-) I appreciate you taking the time to share such a positive comment!! Hope you have a superb weekend mate! 👍👍

[@jonbasstro1413]

Hi Luke, great tutorial on this subject.The pace and presentation is perfect.Everyone using Pixinsight can benefit from this.Another fine image and thanks for providing the data to follow along. Clear skies.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks a ton Jon my friend, very happy to hear you liked it! :-) Hope you've been having a great weekend mate, and thanks for watching!

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

Yet another stellar performance on your part and a most informative video!! It has taken the hesitation out of those of us considering moving up from OSC to Mono! A significant leap in image quality and the clearly articulated PI processing workflow is excellent. Well done and thanks a million Luko!!

[@lukomatico]

That's wonderful to hear my friend!! So happy that you've found some use from this video, it really does make it all worthwhile to read such positivity! :-) Thank you again and I hope you have a wonderful weekend! 👍👍

[@sevenskiesastro]

Excellent tutorial Luke. Loved it.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks so much Rob!! Great to hear from you buddy 👍👍

[@jeremyphillips1134]

Excellent - thanks so much. So helpful and made the early steep learning curve fun. My head didn't explode.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks so much for watching mate!! That's awesome feedback 👍

[@christophercraig9295]

Hi Luke, thank you SOOOO much for this series. I have been loving them and I'm learning so much. I can't thank you enough. I was really terrified of this piece of software but I'm onboard now, and after this trial period will probably be purchasing.

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Christopher!! - That's just fantastic to hear my friend, I really couldn't hope for better feedback than that! :-) Thank you so much for watching and taking the time to leave a really positive comment mate, I appreciate it! Clear skies!

[@SimonsAstro]

Another fantastic tutorial Luke, very well explained👍 Many thanks for doing this, I’ve picked up a couple more tips! Brilliant image of M51! Clear skies mate!

[@lukomatico]

Thanks so much Simon mate!! - Real chuffed you liked it! :-) Awesome to see the obsy is coming along nicely now mate :-D

[@josephluciani5531]

Another masterpiece Luke. You’re becoming the Leonardo da Vinci of Pixinsight. Seriously, what you produce (and how you explain every detail to us) is inspiring. Everything, from manipulating the range mask, to your use of curves is, not to be redundant, simply masterful. Can’t wait for galaxy season!

[@lukomatico]

Hey Joe!! - So happy to hear you enjoyed this one my friend, I'm ridiculously flattered by your comments, haha!! :-D Hope the next one will prove enjoyable too! Clear skies!

[@enriqueestebanSchott]

Excelente clase, como siempre

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Enrique!! :-) 🙏

[@redabdab]

Luke, you continue to rock! Also, great to see you broadcasting to the nation from your snazzy new observatory (fantastic job on that!)

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much Stuart mate!! :-D glad you like it!

[@M31glow]

Great series of posts; thank you!

[@lukomatico]

Glad you like them! Thanks for watching mate :-D

[@haiderbhogadia4829]

Fantastic! I am new to AP many thanks

[@lukomatico]

Thank you for watching! :-)

[@jayhalloween]

This was an amazing tutorial!

[@lukomatico]

Glad it was helpful! - thank you!!

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

Another great tutorial mate look forward to the next one.

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Tich mate!! Really glad you like it 👍👍 Clear skies!

[@jjjscharf8059]

Really great tutorials Luke! Much appreciated.

[@lukomatico]

Glad you like them mate!! Thanks so much for watching!

[@obafgkm30108]

Thank you for another great video Luke! I can't wait to try these processes on my images!

[@lukomatico]

Glad you like them bud! :-) Thanks for watching!

[@stephen.and.the.huskies3741]

Thank you so much Luke! Another great tutorial with helpful tips and tricks! Have a nice weekend and CS, Stephen

[@lukomatico]

Thank you so much Stephen!! - I'm chuffed to hear you've liked them mate, hopefully the next will prove useful too! :-D Hope you and yours have a super weekend too!

[@danjensen9425]

Nice work. I’ve been using Telescope live for processing practice during bad seeing nights . I just picked up the M51 data set and stacked it. It needed to be drizzled to eliminate square red stars and other issues but a great data set. Dark sky’s from Chile. I will use your work flow for it. Thanks for making great videos for us.

[@lukomatico]

That's fantastic to hear Dan!! I wish you great luck with the workflow, it's a lot of fun! :-) Clear skies my friend

[@Tony-Elliott]

Another excellent tutorial Luke. You make editing images looks so easy, thanks for sharing your expertise mate

[@lukomatico]

Appreciated as always Anthony, thank you so much mate!! :-) Hope you have a good one!

[@paulholdsworth2502]

Really good video again Luke. I think the two takeaways for me on this one is advanced sharpening and chrominance noise reduction. I'm definitely going to stop automatically using chrominance noise reduction when I'm using lrgb integration and also I tend to use unsharp mask for sharpening most of the time. Two brilliant tips mate 👌

[@lukomatico]

So glad you found some use from this one Paul mate, hearing things like that really does make it all worthwhile putting these things together! :-) Hope you have a great week ahead of you bud!!

[@michaelharrington7797]

Thanks a lot Luke for providing such a great tutorial really helped me with my first attempt great work 👍

[@lukomatico]

So glad it helped Michael! - Thank you very much for taking the time to let me know it's been useful, that's encouraging! Clear skies!

[@4auswanderer]

An amazing video. Thank you soooooooooooooooooooo much for it 🙂

[@lukomatico]

So nice of you to say that, thank you!! :-) clear skies!

[@AstroLaVista]

Hey Luke, loved the chill music and the great explanation, fantastic as always :) My plan is too keep watching your tutorials until it properly sinks in that I can't reproduce this level of control in GIMP. I'm stubbornly clinging on, but I do wish it at had the dynamic background extraction and the same level of masking, I spend quite a lot of time trying to ring the most out of GIMP but there is some kind of sick pleasure in this I guess and I'm a tight-ass. Still I really should find time to check out the Pixinsight free trial, the gateway drug :D Can't argue with the results, that M51 is stunning! Have a great bank holiday mate!

[@lukomatico]

Haha, "the gateway drug", you're not kidding either lol!! - It's something I put off purchasing for a very long time, but so glad I eventually did! pound for pound it's probably the best upgrade to image quality that money can buy! Hope you have a cracking bank holiday too matey, enjoy yourself! :-) Clear skies!

[@mpk2707]

Great video, thanks 🙂

[@lukomatico]

You’re very welcome Mark! :-) Thanks for watching mate!

[@mpk2707]

@@lukomatico Can I suggest that you add chapters in your videos. This way it´s easier to get back to and check a specific process flow.

[@lukomatico]

@@mpk2707 That's a great suggestion Mark, thank you! - I'll try and get these recent ones done over the weekend 👍👍

[@tomtoka]

this is great! I am starting with MONO and I find this very interesting . I have few questions, can I combinate RGB right away and then work on RGB photo? I noticed that I need to UNCHECK CHRMINANCE NOISE REDUCTION in LRGBCombination, otherwise I get few stars a little halo red around, why is that?

[@lukomatico]

Thank you for your kind comment my friend! Re: combining right away, generally you should combine the images after they are stretched, linear combinations never turn out right in my experience 👍 Re: chrominance noise reductions, good catch! I've stopped using it entirely mate for that kinda reason. Clear skies!

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

Hi Luko, thanks for the most brilliant series of PI tutorials. I have now set my mind on going mono (currently have an ASI294mc Pro) after following your tutorial through using your data. I came up with what I think is a brilliant result. Please can you advise which mono camera you used for the M51 data, as well as the make of filters used. Please also advise the telescope type. Thanks in advance and warm regards for your hard-core fan in Lusaka, Zambia 🇿🇲!

[@lukomatico]

Hey there my friend! I'm so happy to hear you've been finding my tutorials useful and that you've came up with brilliant results, that really puts a smile on my face! - Well done! 😀 RE: the camera I used for this, it was a Player One Apollo-M Mini, an uncooled solar imaging camera! The filters were the basic ZWO LRGB kit, and the scope I used was a Skywatcher 300PDS mounted on an EQ8, I shot LRGB exposures all at 60s each for a total of 4 hours to make this image, all data captured from my bortle 7 backyard 🙂 I spent 50% of the time shooting L and the other 50% divided between R/G/B frames. I hope that helps you my friend! It's really awesome to hear my vids have reached you in Zambia by the way, I'm always amazed by the power of KZbin when it comes to connecting people all over the globe! Thanks so much for watching, Clear skies!!

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

Good morning Luko! Trust you’re keeping well and enjoying some clear skies. I am quite in love with the new Pixinsight BlurX tool (have the other two Xtools 😊). I am reworking your M51 data and following your excellent video tutorial on processing the LRGB data you so kindly provided. My question is, at what stage in your workflow, would you apply BluxX to the luminance and combined RGB data? Thanks 🙏🏿 in advance and wishing you a very Merry Christmas and wonderful New Year! Mupanga, Lusaka, Zambia

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Mupanga! - I hope you have a superb Christmas and new year too my friend, genuinely! :-) RE: when to apply BXT on this image, I'd personally do it right after cropping the files to size! I've tried it at multiple different points in a processing workflow, there's honestly not too much difference it seems, but the creator of the tool advises to use it earlier rather than later, so that's good enough for me :-D Clear skies mate!

[@Phillyo118]

Hi Luke, nice video to follow and good for beginners (like myself really) to follow along with. I'm just curios, when you did the crop you dropped the triangle onto each frame. However, once you'd done DBE you didn't do the same thing. You did DBE individually for each channel. Any reason for that?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Philip! - That's a great question mate, I should have explained why I was doing that during the video! The reason I had to manually model the DBE for each is because the individual channels can have varying gradients based on what colour they were shot through, for example from differing interactions with light-pollution on certain filters :-) I hope that helps explain it my friend! Clear skies!

[@anata5127]

I tried EZ noise and NoiseTerminstor. I think they serve different purpose. EZ noise smooth background (different brightness levels); functions performed by ABE and DBE. Noise Terminator is like Multi-scale Linear Transform.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Ana! - I hear you! 👍 To offer my perspective though, in my own workflow I've completely stopped using ez-denoise to be honest, it feels like noisexterminator just does an all around better job on my data :-) Hope you have a great holiday period!

[@anata5127]

@@lukomatico Yea, if ABE or DBE is done well, then there is no need of EZ denoise. What cameras and filters do you use?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Ana! - my main two cameras are the imx571 based player one Poseidon-C pro, and the mono imx183 based asi183mm pro.

[@anata5127]

@@lukomatico Great choice. I recall your review of Poseidon-C. There is many versions around, rising cam, ZWO, Qhy etc. I have no color camera, sold them. L-Extreme is still around😀. I use 294mm; very tough to work with. I will probably get asi533 and new cooled cameras based on imx432. How often do you use dark skies for astrophotography?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Ana! I'm glad to hear you're finding out what works best for you, that's a great position to be in :-) I had a 294 in the past, it's a challenging sensor at times - very temperamental! I moved onto a 533 and it was much nicer, so easy to calibrate. - I think you'll be happy! Re: dark skies, honestly never! I do everything from home 👍 Thanks for watching!

[@janelubenskyi1177]

Hi Luc…I have tried Pixinsight but I have always found the need to finish off in a layers based program such as Photoshop. Now there is Affinity Photo with the recently add astrophotography macros. Affinity Photo works in 32 bit linear…and combined with my other arsenal software of Siril, Gimp, Luminar and StarTools I think I could get an image similar in quality to one made in Pixinsight….your opinion please…do you have the need ever to further tweak the image after using Pixinsight?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Jane! - that's great to hear there's real alternatives out there for people now, options are always good! :-) Regarding needing to finish in other programs, I've not personally felt the need! It'd be interesting to see how your version of the data done in affinity turns out if you get the chance! :-) Clear skies!

[@janelubenskyi1177]

Hi Luc…there is Bill’s color masks ….but are there anything to automatically create luminosity masks in the way that Bill did or with scripts?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Jane! - I believe Bill has a tool, I'll have to speak with him about it :-) sorry I can't help more right now!

[@beatsntoons]

Nice work, Luke. What about stacking? Do you use WBPP or DSS?

[@lukomatico]

Thanks mate! - I use neither anymore, haha! - Switched over to APP for all my stacking for a while now, really like it! :-) Thanks for watching!

[@janelubenskyi1177]

Hi I have a question relating to either Starnet or Star Exterminator…I know that the stand-alone of Starnet requires the 16 bit image and I assume so does Star Exterminator. The question is does that mean essentially the created starless and stars only image created would be finally also 16 bit if created within Pixinsight using these tools as plugins?

[@lukomatico]

I do believe the resultant images would have the same bit depth as the originals yep! :-)

[@janelubenskyi1177]

Luc…great tutorial. I am puzzled…with Starnet a starless and stars mask is created ….is it actually the stars themselves or only the mask for the stars that is created?…Also another way to get the stars would in Pixelmath subtract the starless image from the original stretched image…is there a difference between the two methods…which way is better?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Jane! - For the star reduction methods from Bill you don't actually need the stars image creating, you just need the starless image itself and your main image you're working on, with the stars in place, the rest is taken care of with math!

[@garethjones4305]

Another great video Luke. I am really enjoying following the Pixinsight work flows, it is really assisting with my processing. One question please - you refer to the AdvSharpening script, do you know where this is available from ? Many thanks Gareth

[@lukomatico]

Thank you Gareth!! Glad you're enjoying them mate :-) Re: adv sharpening, I've had it ages so thought it was part of PixInsight haha! - it's likely part of a free repository hosted online if not a default script, I'll have to look into it more when I'm able mate, hope that helps a bit!

[@garethjones4305]

No worries - thanks for taking the time to reply. Keep up the excellent work 👍👍

[@hubblejim]

Great video! What equipment did you use?

[@lukomatico]

Thank you! This was data from a 300mm f4.7 Newtonian I had, paired with an uncooled solar camera, the player one Apollo m mini 👍 Cheers!

[@richardheinsohn2624]

Nice video Luke. I've been using PI for five years now and learn something new every time I'm using it. What music are you using in the background of this video?

[@lukomatico]

Thanks so much mate! - The track is Drifting at 432hz by Unicorn Heads hope that helps!

[@richardheinsohn2624]

@@lukomatico thank You

[@scottrk4930]

Hiya Luke , hope you are feeling better buddy . There is always that one statement in all Astro Processing procedures..."adjust to make it look more natural"...? LOL , always makes me smile . If I could look out the windscreen on my spaceship at M51 then I'd know for sure what natural was . Is there no way in the individual Data to determine say...the per centages of the colours captured and then apply those ratios when doing saturation and colour balance ? I've seen M51 Images where it's entirely red or blue and starts to look like a Paint-by-numbers project . For me less is always more . I have to leave the room for a while then come back and look at what I've done and then make small tweaks , I think our eyes start to tune out after too long in front of the Monitors . Cheers/SRK

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Scott! - Aw thank you for asking mate, I'm doing OK now cheers! 👍👍 That's a great point you've made there about what even is 'natural' anyway, haha! I think, personally speaking, it's about making a mostly faithful representation of the data you've captured, without an unlimited artistic scope for interpretation - but still just enough to capture the imagination, and tempered further with work from our peers as reference (E.G, if Hubble's M51 doesn't have purple in it, mine probably shouldn't either! :-D) I completely hear you regarding needing to come back later to some processing jobs, hahah - the amount of times I've saved out an image and thought 'there, perfect.. Done!' only to view it the next day and question if I need to visit the optician! 😂😂 Thanks for the great comment bud, hope you have a good one!

[@user-ze2ie8wc6l]

Awesome videos, re your Beginners PI series! (Which i just discovered) - but question: will the downloads (in particular your PI icons/setup) work on Mac? If not, can i get somehow?

[@lukomatico]

Should work fine mate! Only one way to be sure though! If they don't immediately appear you may need to right-click and 'arrange icons' to get them to show 👍

[@user-ze2ie8wc6l]

Holy hell, it worked!!! Oddly, no matter what i tried, i could not get Starnet to show up, re the instructions - i did exactly as instructed, could see it in the list, in proper spot, but was greyed-out (unavailable). The “troubleshooting” in the instructions suggested it was either out-of-date PI (for sure no - brand new), or that i had it in wrong place or sub-folder - but nope. Sooo - out of frustration and “GET ON WITH IT”, i bought StarXterminator - install went flawlessly. And then, fingers-crossed, your data and workspace files WORKED!! I see you are on PC, and i had my doubts re the unzipping/etc would work, over to Mac - by YESSS! - FINALLY i am on my way! (I hope). Your opening words in this video reflect my own frustration EXACTLY… lol… THANKYOU AGAIN!

[@user-ze2ie8wc6l]

And a strange coincidence - the very first thing i was trying to process in my newly-bought PI ..? Pleiades … thats how i found you and this, was just searching for both - little did i expect to get a GREAT “beginner” tutorial for the whole mess! Was just really looking for some M45 help, and was going to try to slog through it - but THIS is AWESOMMMMMEEE!

[@lukomatico]

Awesome mate!! :-D so happy for you that it all worked out! Good luck and clear skies!

[@astrophotographythewrightw9364]

What scope did you use mate

[@lukomatico]

Hey there mate! - this was taken with a skywatcher 300pds and aplanatic coma corrector 👍 Hope that helps!

[@chrismcgrew4692]

When you shoot LRGB, how much L do you have to RGB? I see some people do 2:1:1:1, and some 1:1:1:1, and some also 3:1:1:1. Also, what about sub length. Are you shooting the same exposure length for each filter? Again, I've seen people do say 120 seconds for all 4, but some will do half that for L. So 60 second L, and 120 second RGB, for example.

[@lukomatico]

Good questions Scott! - there's a lot of schools of thought to this one, it can be taken to an extreme where some people use individually calculated exposure lengths for each filter to equalise r g b strength based on the bandpass of their filter and the response of their sensor at each part of the spectrum! For me though, I prefer a simple approach these days - 2 minute L, 3 minute RGB in most cases. As to distribution of imaging time, 50% of my time spent on L, the other 50% on RGB usually is my method 👍 I've experimented with short exposures throughout too(60s for everything), and honestly there wasn't that much difference from my skies, so I think it's something you don't have to worry much about unless you're shooting from immaculate skies and trying to min/max your approach 👍 Hope that helps!

[@chrismcgrew4692]

@@lukomatico Yeah I’m not looking for scientific perfection, just something that works 95% of the time. I shoot broadband mostly in B4, with the occasional annual trip to B1. Simplicity and repeatability is key for me.

[@beatsntoons]

Hey Luke. Hope all is well mate. Now that we have all these awesome AI tools like BlurX, StarX, Graxpert AND the EZ suite is no longer around, how does this tutorial change? I've been out of the game for a bit and have forgotten everything :) I've got some data on NGC300 that I want to edit, but it seems these new tools are almost mandatory because of how good they are. Sad that EZ Stretch is gone though, that was amazing. Cheers!

[@lukomatico]

Hey there mate! I'll look at a redo of these tutorials soon I think, it's about time as you say - things have moved on fast! :-)

[@michaelharrington7797]

hi luke following allong with your vidios great work. howerver im stuck at the start loading the icons into pixinsight. When I drag the icons file into pixinsight it comes up with 21 new icon(s) had to be renamed due to conflicting identifiers with previously existing icons. Original identifiers have been suffixed as necessary to make them unique. after this happens no icons show up in right hand side like in you vidio. any idiea what im doing wrong?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Michael! - You'll need to open PixInsight from fresh, drag the icons on the screen, right click the pixinsight desktop and press "select all icons" , then right click again and press "arrange all icons" that should bring everything into view for you! :-) Good luck!

[@michaelharrington7797]

Thanks Luke worked a treat thanks heaps please keep making tutorials it’s such a big help great work and thanks for the reply 👍 also the Pleiades is my first target so this is great for me 😄

[@lukomatico]

Fantastic mate, glad to hear it!! :-) good luck and thanks again for watching!

[@michaelharrington7797]

@@lukomatico hi luke sorry mate but no advsharpening tool in my pixinsight any idias ?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Michael! I'll be honest, I've had them that long that I can't remember if they actually did come with PixInsight or not now you ask! You could skip the step for now and still get a fine end result though just for the sake of learning and getting used to it :-) Sorry about that mate!

[@michaelharrington7797]

Hi anyone able to help with install of the advshapening script following this tutorial and am stuck at the sharpening step. Any help much appreciated thanks

[@lukomatico]

www.skypixels.at/pixinsight_scripts.html - that link there should help mate, it'll install the scripts from the repository :-) If you don't want to go that route though then by all means just skip the sharpening step and proceed as usual, not too much different either way! Good luck!

[@michaelharrington7797]

@@lukomatico thanks Luke much appreciated 👍

[@3220mike]

So far so good, but when I hit LRGBCombination, it complains the the Luminance image is a grayscale one. Any idea where things went south?

[@lukomatico]

Usually that issue occurs when a file has accidentally been moved into the rgb colour space, rather than mono as it should still be at that point in the process - it might be worth giving it another go and see if the issue crops up again or if it was an anomaly! Good luck mate!

[@ianhagan7656]

@@lukomatico Hi Luke . First thanks for the series. It has been most helpful getting me into Pixinsight. I have the same problem. Retryed a couple of times with no success. Unchecked the luminance file in the script dialog box and it still complains that the Luminance file is a grayscale image even though it is not being composited (I presume). How do I proceed now?

[@ianhagan7656]

Had the same issue but Bingo!! The penny dropped. I was clicking Apply with the Luminance image selected not Apply Global

[@lukomatico]

@@ianhagan7656 Sorry about the late reply Ian! - I'm so glad to hear you got it sorted though mate, that's fantastic! - thanks for letting me know!

[@pei6426]

Hi Luke; I noticed that you didn't use Blur Xterminator but you did use an Advanced Sharpening script. If using Blur Xterminator would you still have used the Advanced Sharpening? I see similar effects when using Blur Xterminator but perhaps the Advanced Sharpening might apply this type of change in a more focussed way???

[@lukomatico]

Hey mate! Since getting BXT I've not touched the adv sharpening script to be honest, BXT just does a better job in every way! Hope that helps 👍

[@pei6426]

@@lukomatico Thank you, I am starting to get the opinion that when processing there are a handful of new tools that allow simplification of what might otherwise take numerous specialized tools.

[@davidcox1616]

What do I use in place of EZ from dark archon :(

[@lukomatico]

Hey there mate! - the ez suite is still available as far as I know now, it's just moved location as it's been taken over by another dev I'll update the link :-)

[@davidcox1616]

@lukomatico Wonderful! I did a quick Google search and all that came up were forums that said it was gone :(

[@davidcox1616]

But I see your updated link and it works great! Thank you so much

[@michaelharrington7797]

Hi Luke, do you offer one on one tutoring? If so how can I contact you?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there Michael! - I'm afraid I don't currently offer 1-1 tuition, it's maybe something I should look at doing though! Thank you so much for your interest, my apologies for any disappointment my friend. Clear skies!

[@drstuartporter8248]

Hi Sorry to be thick Luke but where do I see the data files?

[@lukomatico]

Hey there! :-) They should be hosted on my Google drive with a link in the description box of this video for you 👍 Hope that helps!

[@drstuartporter8248]

@@lukomatico found it thankyou. I'll tell you something... I spent 9 years doing a PhD thinking that was the hardest thing I'd ever do then I found pixinsight- oh boy. Thankyou for your tutorials they are extremely helpful

[@MrGeert1972]

Is that EZ processing suite free or a paid plugin?

[@lukomatico]

It's free buddy 👍

[@MrGeert1972]

@@lukomatico just installed it and trying it out for the first time. PixInsight is new for me but I’m blown away what it can do. I still need to learn and try to understand it. But I love it. Just got a 2 days and got some fine results.

[@anata5127]

Why my Script-Utility doesn’t have ADVSharpening?

[@lukomatico]

Hey Ana, it's part of an optional script package that I forgot to mention as part of the video intro - sorry about that! The repository to install them is linked in the video description for you 👍 Hope that helps!

[@anata5127]

@@lukomatico I see it. Thanks a lot!

[@lukomatico]

@@anata5127 Awesome!! Enjoy 👍

[@anata5127]

@@lukomatico Cannot manage it. It saves in downloads and not in scr/scripts as it tells. I go to Add and cannot find this file In downloads. What to do? Thanks

[@anata5127]

@@lukomatico Ag. I got it. I should add entire Script folder, not file. Done. Now, I have this sharpening tool.