PixInsight DSLR Workflow Tutorial

[@jcinaz]

You do a good job with your tutorials. 4 years have passed and PixInsight has improved a LOT! Starnet added. WBPP 2.1. And other new scripts. It would be nice to see how you have updated your workflow. I wouldn't worry that so many others are now doing PI tutorials because your method is easy to follow with a very pleasant tone of voice.

[@designbydave]

Thanks so much John. Unfortunately I've fallen away from astrophotography and haven't kept up with the changes to PixInsight. I'm sure it keeps getting better and better.

[@danielbeetsma6118]

"I try to drink two or three beers for every process" ;-) Nice hehe. Ain't we got one of the best hobby's? ;-) Thanks for this tutorial!

[@patrickstevenson8305]

This tutorial has succeeded in pulling my further from CC2021 toward strictly Pix. Nice work flow, I like it.

[@dilipsharan8699]

One of the best PixInsight tutorials I have come across. Also good to have one focusing on DSLR

[@designbydave]

Thanks! Glad you found it helpful.

[@paulbarrett423]

Learnt a lot of new stuff tonight through this, biggest one was noise reduction before stretching the image, made sense soon as you said it thanks very much

[@goranthoren5522]

Without your excellent tutorials I had never been able to understand this software, thank's!

[@jeffreys.8557]

Many thanks for this excellent tutorial David. This has become the foundation of my processing workflow in PI. Thank you!!

[@thewarhenk]

Nice David. Decon should be used when linear, when star PSFs maintain their original values. While we're instructed to use the DynamicPSF process to generate the synth PSF image, using the Parametric tab as you have can bring a good result too. But again, decon isn't an edge sharpener, but rather a restorative algorithm, designed to be used in the linear space.

[@designbydave]

Thanks for the info. I'll play around some more with this!

[@thewarhenk]

Most welcome David. Great DSLR images! Glad I could help. Feel free to share my documentation of PI with your viewers and Yahoo groups. Tutorials are at www.ip4ap.com, with free primers on my KZbin channel. Book is here springer.com/us/book/9783319256801. Happy holidays!

[@jeromeyesavage9628]

I agree. The technique used in the tutorial seems to be directed at the object rather that cleaning up stars. that is an original application. I think you could add in the deconvolution while linear for the stars and repeat later for the object. You would get the PSFs.

[@GaryP747]

Great job Dave and thanks a million for sharing your processing methodology. It is invaluable for those of us just starting with Pix. Greatly appreciated! :-)

[@user-nz2vu5dc3d]

Well done that helps me in a nice presentation and voice.. waiting for next tutorials thanks

[@cl5150GL]

Thanks for this great tutorial. This is the best tutorial I found for PixInsight until now! Well done.

[@springy120453]

Great tutorial, bookmarked and subscribed. I understand MLT a lot better now. One question, when doing Chrominance, why go to 7 layers when you are still only using the first 3/4?

[@angryBOT]

Thank you very much for that awesome tutorial. Helped a lot to get a overview and understand the basic workflow of PixInsight and start editing my astro-images on my own. I am now able to preprocess, edit and finalize my images fully in PixInsight and get way better results than before. It just took me 2 days of reading and watching! Easy with the help of guys like you ;). Clear skies and keep it up!

[@georgehatfield9473]

Well done! You might want to try a masked stretch as your initial stretch.

[@designbydave]

Hmm, I'll have to experiment with that thanks!

[@chuknorth]

More excellence, thanks again. I do appreciate how you estimate time span w/beer. Helpful.

[@aerofart]

I drank three beers just watching this video :-). LIKED and SUBSCRIBED!

[@designbydave]

Cheers! I hope to get more tutorials up soon!

[@FabrizioSellone]

Great instructive tutorial! Thanks for sharing!! Two questions : 1. Is your 7d modified with the ir filter removed? 2. Which scope did you use, or better, what is your setup? Thanks!

[@designbydave]

1. Nope, all stock. I wish I had a modded camera but I use this camera for other photography as well. 2. My gear: - Canon 7D Mark II- Orion 8" f/3.9 Astrograph- Baader MPCC Mark III Coma Corrector- Orion Atlas Pro Mount- ZWO ASI 120MC-s guide camera w/ 60mm guide scope

[@alessandrogaldiero7796]

Hello Dave se fai ancora foto con la reflex perché non crei un tutorial più aggiornato?

[@designbydave]

Unfortunately I've been out of the astrophotography game for a while now

[@Orionshield1948]

Well produced! Thanks for the effort to present.

[@spudwebster]

Most tutorials start with the images already stacked. Would like to know how one gets that far. Many problems occur during stacking. Would be nice to see the step by step. For example, I used a color DSLR, but my darks and flats are grayscale. How do I see the color?

[@designbydave]

Sorry, I've been out of the astrophotography game for a while now so I'm not very "current" with this stuff. I explained right off the bat in this video that I used Deep Sky Stacker to stack this image. I have another video tutorial on that.

[@spudwebster]

@@designbydave Thanks. I am just getting grumpy because everyone starts with Masters from DSS or another program. LOL! Trying to do it all in PI.

[@designbydave]

@@spudwebster Guess what, I have a tutorial for that as well! kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKG3nXaghJighNEsi=KBy01Ian2sZtde5r

[@spudwebster]

@@designbydave Thanks! What would really help me how your integrated files are in color. I normally do mono, but started using a DSLR for quick fun. When I look at a sub, its grayscale and when I stack my darks for example, they are grayscale. How are you guys seeing color? I used a moded Canon T3i and shot in FITs instead of CR2 using SGP. Any help would be appreciated and you'd be my hero!

[@designbydave]

Hmm, I always shot directly on the camera. I don't know what SGP is. Assuming that is a 3rd party application running on a computer, I'd guess there is a mono/color configuration in there. @@spudwebster

[@temp680]

This is really helpful, thank you for this video, I appreciate it!

[@designbydave]

You're very welcome. Glad I could be of help. Let me know if there is anything you'd like to see in more detail. I'm planning a series of tutorials.

[@temp680]

A narrowband tutorial would be really helpful for me.

[@designbydave]

You and me both! Combining and mixing the color channels seems to be an art all to itself! I've played around a bit but haven't been able to get anything I like.

[@temp680]

David Aldrich Im trying to get the hubble kind of colors with the gold and cyan kind of stuff

[@gaiors]

Thats a huge contribution! thanks for sharing!

[@MexximusUK]

Thanks again for posting. This has become the basis of my workflow with great results. One question is... As the image is already permanently stretched I believe I don't have to stretch when saving (although I have tried this as well) ? When saving from XISF to JPEG, TIFF etc. I have a noticeable loss in visual quality no matter what size file or settings I try. I never had this problem when saving from FIT but recent changes in Pixinsight have forced me to update from an earlier version and save as XISF. Many Thanks to anyone that could provide a solution!

[@LeifSobremonte]

this is a long shot - but would you by any chance have the integration details for the stacked fts used in the tutorial? i'm using an unmodded 7dmkii + cls filter but my integrations look waaaay noisier than yours. maybe i'm using the wrong iso (1600) or exposures (usually 60secs).. or i guess i just need more frames. yes i'm also using flats+darks. great tutorial, thanks for sharing!

[@designbydave]

Oh sorry man, its been a while and I've importunately been out of the asrto game. I think these were 5 minute exposures at iso 1600, usually around 2 - 3 hours total integration time.

[@LeifSobremonte]

@@designbydave ah no worries. in the beginning of the vid you did say it was about 1.5 hrs integration. but wow. 5 minute subs. you must have nice dark skies! unfortunately i live under bortle 9 so that's that i guess. thanks again!

[@gabrielperez2568]

Great tutorial! cleared a lot of things for me. Thanks for posting.

[@chrishill4903]

Working through Warren Keller's book as well as other online tutorials. I noticed that you got around using background modelization by using Background Neutralization. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? BTW. Very impressed with your knowledge of PI clearly you have spent inordinate hours of practice. Thanks again for putting this tutorial together.

[@JaySott]

Dave, Thank you for the incredibly detailed process. Certainly a huge amount to learn in PixInsight. I am running into a problem with the saturation phase and wanted to run it by you if I could? I have a shot of M43 with Running Man and nebulosity across the region. I'm very advanced in Lightroom, and while I cannot achieve some of the internal structural work available in PixInsight, I can most definitely pull out the blues and reds, and even that hint of green. When working through your process, I get the blues around the top (Running Man) and bottom nebula, but it's pretty devoid of any of the reds very much a part of the central area. Any thoughts as to how to bring those out? I'd be more than glad to share the original RAW file with you. I also understand (I think) that I'm supposed to be converting the RAW file to FITS? (which I haven't mastered).

[@jean-marcgillard]

Hi David, thanks a lot for this tuto (and others too) I've learn a lot about how to examinate images and fix problems. And fyi beer is my job...so thanks for drinking some too ;o)

[@BrokenPik]

man i so needed this tut, i was about to sell everything..... 350$ for Pix,,, no results.. thanks David..

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

Hi David. Please can you advise how you get those great-looking diffraction spikes on your stars? Thanks in advance. Mupanga

[@designbydave]

Hi. Diffraction spikes are an optical aberration caused by the arms of the secondary mirror holder (the spider) of the dobsonian telescope I was using.

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

@@designbydave Ok thanks. So not much hope of such from my RedCat 51 😅! Have a great day Sir…

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

@@designbydave BTW, a great tutorial that de-mystified multi-exposure HRD - will be trying it out soon. Many thanks 🙏🏿!!

[@designbydave]

@@mupangamwanakatwe1300 diffraction spikes are technically a flaw in the image, but yeah, they can look pretty nice. There are software tools that will generate them so you can fake it. Google around

[@designbydave]

@@mupangamwanakatwe1300 Thanks and good luck

[@JulioCruzcoach]

I know this is an old tutorial but.. do you use a star filter? Your stars have spikes, how? Thanks.

[@hahnzey]

Excellent tutorial!

[@kimkyungkoo72]

Excellent tutorial ! Thak you very much. Really helpful. :)

[@georgekolossoski8972]

Hi, i'm very new to Pixinsight, and there are some things that i didn't understand. The first one is: There's an annotation that says the actual first step is background extraction. I watched that video, followed the steps and got a new image with background extracted and STF autostretched. Now should i use this new image to the next steps? Should i have hit Ctrl + A to autostretch, or i have to use the image without autostretch? Thank you.

[@designbydave]

Hi George. Yes, you'll want to use the new, background-extracted image to do the rest of your processing. It should already be autostretched but if not go ahead and do so. Remember that the autostretch is just a preview that you toggle on and off. Hope that helps.

[@TheZ3roCool]

Thanks for the great video :) Very easy to follow.

[@RegulusRemains]

This was SO helpful! Thank you!

[@kevinnichts1515]

Great Tutorial, thank you very much! It helped me alot!

[@designbydave]

Cheers. Got any of your images online?

[@kevinnichts1515]

This is my last image that i have taken and the first that i'm think its showable. www.astrobin.com/279460/ Do you also have a Astrobin account?

[@designbydave]

Keinen Nichts wow that is a great image!

[@kevinnichts1515]

Thanks a lot David :-)

[@goranthoren5522]

Extremely helpful, thank's a lot!

[@jamestomney443]

Thanks - very informative!

[@ACEOFSPACE2000]

Thanks for the info great tutorial.

[@glennjshuttleworth4365]

Thanks, very helpful.

[@designbydave]

You're very welcome. Glad I could be of help. Let me know if there is anything you'd like to see in more detail. I'm planning a series of tutorials.

[@MeisterSchnitzel1]

Great video, thank you very much!

[@georgelabelle8820]

Slow it down. The mouse moves so fast it is difficult to follow. Thanks.

[@designbydave]

Ok, thank you

[@ScottyBishop]

Glad I didn't buy PI because I can't get a result with it that is even close to as good as I do with Photoshop. Got 3 weeks left on the trial, not even hopeful hat I will ever get anything good with it. I followed this exactly, and still, nope.

[@designbydave]

Scotty Bishop "I followed this exactly" - that's where you're not getting it. You can just copy someone else's settings and expect it to work with your images. Every setup is different and even the changes from the seeing the night you images changes how you approach processing them. Pixinsight is a big box of tools and to get good results you have to invest the time to figure out how those tools can best serve your images. So some people it may not be worth the time. For me it has been. This guide is meant only as a rough template and its what I've found works for me.

[@malcolqwe2]

wow..I clicked on this expecting to find out how to stack DSLR images...

[@adventureswithfrodo2721]

You do something at the very start where it totally changes the image so unfortunately it makes the crap tutorial.

[@designbydave]

I'm not sure where you are referring too, but if you are unable to follow along, please see a beginner tutorial for Pixinsight. I did not intend for this to be an "intro to Pixinsight" tutorial as there are plenty of those out there. Instead, this was meant as the title says, a "workflow" tutorial. Not a tutorial on how to use the tools, but rather the order and reasons for that order based on the type of image I am processing. Sorry if that wasn't clear in the title or at the beginning of the video.