The big reveal! GraXpert vs PixInsight DBE.

GraXpert astronomical background extraction is a free open-source software designed specifically for removing gradients from astro images prior to processing. In this video I reveal which of the images had GraxPert applied and which had DBE.
Original GraXpert vs PixInsight DBE here: • GraXpert astronomical ...
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Thanks for watching! Clear skies!

[@jensunger6560]

Love that Big Reveal Video! Thank you for showing things off the Big Tools

[@danielbahlman1826]

YOUR PixInsight DBE tutorial was essentially my gateway drug to the program!

[@gregerianne3880]

Great information. Thanks, Shawn!

[@elbass0]

I use Siril for background extraction. Works very well and is very quick.

[@actudoran]

thanks for your videos ☺️ we learn something new

[@jjlodgephotography]

Thank you Shawn, GraXpert definitely looks better, bottom left but also the nebulosity above the Horsehead nebula. I use DBE settings based on a video you made having previoulsy struggled with it and in general it gives me good reliable results, however I am looking forwards to trying GraXpert now 👍

[@Vbbfrs]

Thank you Shawn. I m very intersted by this new piece of software. I will compare with pixinsght as you've done Good job Bye

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Thanks! Clear skies.

[@dmintz88]

Great video, Shawn! If I had that result in Pix, I would hit it with an ABE at function degree 1 and I bet it would clean up that edge and compare almost identically to GraXpert. Based on what I've seen, I anticipate I won't be using GraXpert simply due to the inconvenience of needing to open another program during my workflow. I think the real win for the developers here is to build it into Pix, similar to how the XTerminator products work.

[@benc7102]

Gday Shawn Mate always great to see one of your tutorials Very interesting results Hopefully we get some better weather here soon Wishing you all the best for New Years Cheers mate

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Thanks Ben! Cheers.

[@Lasserubinskov]

Thanks Shawn. Interesting :)

[@richardheinsohn2624]

Hi Shawn, I've been using GraXpert since it was introduced and I find there is a slight improvement over the DBE tool. I've been using GraXpert on several images recent and past image comparisons and can see a nice improvement in the final image. Another benefit of it, minimal setup time as compared to DBE process which takes longer.

[@JSRJS]

DBE image is definitely more hazy than the GraXpert image. Impressive

[@qx3V45p]

Thanks for the vids Shawn. I've always had over/under correction on oiii channel no matter how I take flats.... DBE is great but GraXpert seems to do better and easier to use.

[@AntonioPena1]

Shawn, thanks for sharing, interesting tool, and thanks for doing the test to compare, but I have a question, when you cropped image with this tool can damage the photometry resolution?

[@andysmith4050]

interesting new tool

[@ianwatson8599]

Touché I was sure dbe was the left one 😂 I’ll definitely give it a try. Question though, you put the points in the nebulosity, does that effect the resulting image? If I have an image that is close up with no background sky I use abe as I didn’t think it was wise to use dbe with points in nebulosity but I’m still quite new to pixinsight

[@thepuffybird]

Haha you fooled us! For me I'll use both. See which method gives me the best result.

[@alainprefontaine6092]

Thanks for these 3 videos on GraXpert. As usual you do a great job at explaining stuff. When you look at the upper right corner of the pictures, It seems like DBE removed a lot of the nebulosity. This is information that would be lost for the rest of the processing. I will definittely give GraXpert a try. In one of your old videos on DBE, you recommended using very large boxes (100 and even 150 pixels). Would you recommend doing the same in GraXpert ? Also, you would first do a division and then a substraction. Do you still recommend doing both?

[@SunJao]

Right! That is what I recall from past videos, I.E., division to correct vignetting and followed by subtraction to correct gradients. I do wonder if the order matters.

[@msacco]

Looks good, I didn't try to play with it too much, so perhaps my suggestions could be off, but maybe it would be better doing another comparison of the best outcome you could come up with for each tool? There's a bit more I assume to each of them, so showing just a comparison of each point is really useful and shows that they're both good, but maybe there's a 'higher ceiling' with one of them. Again, maybe not...

[@nikaxstrophotography]

Thanks Shawn I had a play with Graxpert and my only complaint is it sometimes hangs on win11

[@normanhey8016]

Ha-answered my questions from the comparison video! The real question in my mind is : which result is the more accurate of the two? What can we use as our gold standard? It seems to me that we are always at risk of either leaving some gradient somewhere or taking too much away, no matter which tool we use. Maybe looking at a corrected luminance image with a flat analysis tool like PI's FlatContourPlot can help, but it won't answer these questions. Thoughts?

[@normfox1559]

Agree with GraXpert. In my testing it was as good and probably a little better then DBE. I also think that GraXpert is a ltttle faster and easier then DBE. Just my $.02! Thanks for video Shawn.

[@chrismcgrew4692]

In general I find GraXPert to do a slightly better job than DBE. More useful for me is doing narrowband imaging. For tough gradients on Oiii masters, GraXPert does a better job, IMHO, and is a faster process. It's become a part of my workflow when I find myself with tough Oiii gradients. That said, I find ABE is good enough for 95% of my images. It does a great job with little fuss, and only takes a function degree of 1 or 2 to get nice results.

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Super! Thanks for commenting.

[@jr10]

Sure looks interesting. I wanted to give it a try, but it appears that it is not compatible with Mac Ventura.

[@RayBellis]

It wasn't a big reveal - a "blink" test between the video frames before and after you obfuscated which was which clearly showed the left one was unchanged.

[@davidsheesley112]

Mmmm, obfuscated. 🤤