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.
What is the recommendation to combine LRGB?
Every time I add luminance, the combined result shows up in grey. I have to reduce the weight of luminance to 0.192 to get a colour image.
What am I doing wrong?
Yes, I am new to monochrome.
Yes, in the current implementation the luminance does tend to have this effect, Mabula wants to improve on that. I use up to 30% usually to balance it better.
No something is broken with this, it should not consider L as a white layer, it should use it only to compute the new intensity for RGB based on the RGB values supplied, as a percentage of each, such as R / (R + G + B) * Lum for that pixel. The luminance is not just another "white" layer, its used to boost the intensity of RGB itself. This is not being computed properly. Its not working right if turning down L produces the correct result, as you're just going back to RGB not LRGB.
Hi Skye @skysong,
Okay, I have opened a new issue on my todo list to have a good look at the Luminance calculations to make the RGB composites in the RGB Combine Tool.
I know that this whitening effect is there, so I will definitely try to have this work better going forward 😉
Mabula
Hi Skye @skysong,
Okay, I have opened a new issue on my todo list to have a good look at the Luminance calculations to make the RGB composites in the RGB Combine Tool.
I know that this whitening effect is there, so I will definitely try to have this work better going forward 😉
Mabula
Thank you so much Mabula!
Thank you Skye @skysong for being critical on this issue, I will make sure it will work better going forward.
Mabula
