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.
So I heavily weighted my last two sessions to luminance, and it occurs to me that if I bin the R, G, and B, I'll get rid of some chrominance noise without losing any detail. But for the life of me, I can't figure out how to do that in APP. I see this helpful thread, but that looks as if it would actually reduce the image size so that it no longer registers with the L channel -- I want to leave the L channel alone. Do I have that correct? Or is there another way to accomplish this?
You can still register to the luminance channel, APP will automatically change the resolution to match.
Ah, OK, thanks Vincent! But will APP upscale the "binned" (downscaled with interpolation) RGB data, or downscale the luminance to match? What I want is a full-scale luminance image with the lower-resolution RGB informing each pixel's color.
I think it automatically goes for the bin 1 as that is usually also the best quality, so it should upscale then.
COOL! Well, I will definitely have to try that. For the particular image I was working on, the question is mostly moot -- I just went out and doubled my integration time :-). But I'll certainly want to have that technique in my toolbox. BTW I got all bound up in this Markarian's Chain image and left the Leo's Triplet one by the wayside (the one whose color balance we were discussing in another thread). I'll get back on that and resume that chain. Thanks again for your help with that, and this.
No worries, always here to assist when possible. 😉
