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.
Following your workflow for DSLR, I cannot for the life of me get D for darks to show up after my lights in the list. Just F for Flats and BPM, I have recreated my darks 3 times according to the video without loading the BPM, Just Darks by themselves. Then when I load everything up according to Hoyle the darks d do not show up as available after my lights. Am I missing something?
Also, if one loads up the entire data set from the start, will the APP not perform the correct procedures in the correct order on it's own going through steps 1-6?
I think I found the issue...on me. Some of the lights had different exposure times than the dark set which made them unavailable. I often mix sub times. can I create multiple master darks for this?
PS. I am liking 1.056. Your APP is outstanding, and I do appreciate your hard, very skilled work. Sorry if I sounded testy, just one of those days. I'll try a set with all same exp and see. M27 from Summer 2016 will post when done.
If the D doesn't show then the masterdark created from your darks most likely doesn't matcht the light framesfor both exposure and iso/gain. Currently this is required in APP.
I am working on an upgraded calibration engine, which will include dark scaling and a much more automatic workflow.
And do you think you could ease up a bit on the capcha login iterations?
No, it's google technology, google determines whether you need to confirm if you are not a robot logging in. If you make mistakes with logging in like entering a wrong login or password then the google recaptcha will react on that. I use a local password manager which is highly recommended (Keepass, deliberately not in the cloud) to store all of my logins. That can automatically login for you and I rarely have to confirm that I am not a robot, because of this.
I think I found the issue...on me. Some of the lights had different exposure times than the dark set which made them unavailable. I often mix sub times. can I create multiple master darks for this?
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Yes, indeed, that's the reason, if you make separate masterdarks with different exposures it will work 😉
Like indicated in my previous post, I am working on an improved calibration engine with dark frame scaling, so this won't be needed in the future.
Here is the first run. Seem to have lost star color when i calibrated star color, so am posting no SCC, and PS for gradient removal:
Will try again. I do like how I don't need to post stretch much, and the star color inside the neb stays true.
Hi Greg,
I will make a video tutorial and workflow topic on the forum for the star color calibration tool this week... Just didn't have time yet, but will come.
The image looks good 😉
Did you try to enable and increase saturation while looking at the results from star color calibration ?
I had saturation enabled, but did not play with the settings. I didn't have this issue in 1.055 I don't think. Until I watched your DSLR workflow video, in 1.055 I used to just load up everything and run it and it turned out fine. I never went through the individual steps, when I did my results seemed worse? I know you have to answer a lot of emails so but this one on the back burner, since you did say you were going to create the macro workflow in a new Edition. Meanwhile, I'll watch more videos. Thank you for your efforts.
The blackbody modes are much better than the Balance RGB mode, it's not unusual for an image to appear black/white at first if you use the Black Body mode. Just increase the saturation and you'll see 😉 A video tutorial will come showing it will come.. 😉 I promise !
A pointer, in any tool, like "remove light pollution" or "calibrate background" or "calibrate star colors", over-increase the saturation (25-35) and lower the sat threshold to only 0,05-0,10. Then you will have a far better grip on the tools and their end results. For the final stretch of your data, simply lower the saturation and increase the saturation threshold value to 0,20 at least to protect your sky background from injecting unwanted chromatic noise.
