Re: [Utah-astronomy] Too good to be true?
Michael, my scanner came with Photoshop Elements. Can you outline the advantages of using the full program? Thanks, Joe
Can't outline them all, Joe. I'm still learning. But I can lay out a few things for you. Elements is definitely easier to use. It's also quite powerful in its own right. If you spend a reasonable amount of time exploring it, you'll be able to do an awful lot. Photoshop CS2 has apparently undergone a reworking of its UI (I don't have experience with an older version for comparison). Layout seems pretty logical, but there's an awful lot under the hood. CS2 supports RAW camera format. CS2 also supports 16-bit images (16 bits per pixel). It has a very nifty mode for tripod shots. If you're shooting a scene with a large dynamic range--something that would overwhelm a typical digital camera--you can stack a number of shots done at different shutter speeds. The short exposures would capture the bright stuff and the long exposures would capture the dim stuff. Photoshop will use the best parts of each exposure to make a stack. This is different from astronomical stacking in which the images are integrated. The end result is that you have a photo with a much larger range than your camera is capable of. CS2 has a much more powerful way of using layers. I don't know how useful this is for astrophotography, but it's fabulous for retouching or creating composite shots. CS2 has a great lens correction filter. It can correct 'bowed' lines shot at low F/stops. It can remove JPEG noise. It can easily level an image that leans one way or another. It can even do small perspective changes. There are many more basic image corrections available, along with a lot more in the way of filters. If your primary interest is astrophotography, I really can't address that. I have tremendous admiration for folks on the list who share their shots, but I have too many demands on my time to undertake it. My own photography interests lean more toward landscapes, critters and people. For that kind of work, CS2 has been a real step forward. Hope this is helpful. MC
Long time listener, first time poster. Why not try some of the free tools that are available. The Gimp is a nice, free alternative for photoshop. In many ways it's more scriptable in terms of running changes on a batch of images. Gimpshop is a derivative of the Gimp that is supposed to clone the menu configuration of photoshop that runs on os x and possibly windows. www.gimp.org http://www.gimpshop.net/ pyraf is a python wrapper to the IRAF that the pros use. It adds some GUI functionality and is also free. http://www.stsci.edu/resources/software_hardware/pyraf -Bill Fenton
Thanks so much, Michael. I am still finding out a few things about Elements. I am impressed with the fairly simple stacking program, designed to allow you to make a panorama. I use it not for panoramas but to combine images. It's especially good with the invertebrate fossils I collect. If you're lucky when you split the shale, you get a part and counterpart fossil -- one on each side of the rock. Then I just scan in the pieces with my scanner, using high resolution. I flip one of them so that they are no longer mirror images. Then I work to get them aligned the same way, such as turning one so many degrees to the right. Then I run the panorama program. It almost never aligns them on its own, but it allows you to drag the images onto a square where you can do your own alignment. Then it puts them together as a single image. The result: parts of the fossil may be missing on one rock piece but on the other. This combines them to give a better look at the animal. I think the same kind of process could be used to combine astrophotos. This is a really nice program. Thanks, Joe
participants (3)
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Joe Bauman -
Michael Carnes -
William Fenton