2026-10-09 APP 2.0.0-beta48 has been released !
This is mainly a bug fix release for the reported bugs in beta47. In addition it has a significant User Interface performance improvement noticable when you need to process 1000s of images in APP.
2026-10-03 APP 2.0.0-beta47 has been released !
This is a very big release... many code optimizations/rewrites, many parts of APP are much faster and more precise, especially star analysis and registration are much faster ! Big mosaics will go much faster 🙂
And we introduce a new preview filter, which includes the new Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch and a General Levels Stretch, this has been long over due. The old preview filter (the panel on the right side to stretch and preview your data) has not been updated for a couple of years and it is a critical part of any APP session.
Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch or ADSS is a much more intuitive stretch algorithm. It is also color preserving (which is a great new addition in itself ! ) which means that the highlights are no longer bleached, color is maintained from the linear data while stretching. You can simply stretch your data using the sky background level and signal width sliders which work much easier and more intuitive. You no longer need to fiddle with the old complicated sliders with zoom buttons. All the zoom buttons for the sliders are made redundant. And you can enter slider values in the slider value fields yourself. I will make a youtube video in the coming days to explain and fully introduce ADSS. Once the video is ready, it will be highlighted on the forum.
RGB Combine upgrade !. The RGB Combine Tool has been rewritten mostly. The tool is faster and easier to use and most importantly, the Luminance slider to inject a luminance channel or channels into the RGB composite is now working correctly. It no longer bleaches the RGB colors. Combined with the new ADSS preview, you will get much better and easier great composites with great color! I will also explain this in a new youtube video.
I just wanted to drop a note about an experience I've been having with APP. I work mostly on an Ubuntu laptop, and in an effort to conserve battery, I use a Gnome extension called `cpufreq` to let me toggle between different power management settings. Among other things, it lets me control how many CPU cores are online.
If you are using a utility like this and noticing that APP frequently asks you to re-enter your license code, keep in mind that APP uses the number of CPUs as a factor to identify your computer! So you will need to be in the same power management profile each time you start it.
Thanks, Mabula for helping me figure this out! Top notch support response time!
Yes, APP does indeed make a profile of the hardware for licensing. It only uses a few parameters, usually things that normally don't change much if I'm not mistaken. Like the cpu and it's number of threads. Good to see that was solved and thanks for posting it here as well!
