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 need some help. attached are screen shots of my master flat and a sample Flat both with and w/o background neutralized. needless to say my final image is trash. Camera is an Nikon D850, 8"RC all shots captured in Nikopn RAW. Did a fresh install and ran 2.0.0 beta 3 with all defaults as set. i've been using this camera and APP for over a year and i have never seen this. Especially curious why my flat looks green and it is grey scale when i look at it in Photoshop
I went back and only ran the Calibration step. something is wrong and i am suspecting it is my flat files. here is a screen capture from the console as it processed on of my Flat files. i never remember seeing dispersion values of all zeroes. it is the same for all my flats
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@jaximages Hi John,
Yeah, that dispersion indeed doesn't look good. What darks/bias/darkflats did you use? All also captured in Nikon RAW?
The master flat is grey in Photoshop since it hasn't been debayered.
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Thanks, Wouter
In addition to what Wouter said, could you also show a screenshot of an unstretched result, you can do so by selecting "no stretch" on the right (where it now says "15% BG". This will show the actual signal unstretched.
A very good suggestion of Vincent. If the unstretched master flat is (almost) black then you are severely underexposing your flats.
an update. i went back and looked over my master calibration files. a couple of strange things.APP created 2 master flats. one with a portrait orientation and anoint er with a landscape orientation. my lights were a mix of portrait and landscape and my flats were all portrait. the landscape Master flat was trash, the other was ok. and yes my individual flats were under exposed. i loaded only a few frames of my lights and flats and re-ran only the calibration data and got this master flat.
I then reloaded all my lights, bias and dark frames. then ran integration. got the same crummy result. i then deleted the newest master flat and used the one pictured here from the sample run i did earlier. and got acceptable results.Â
 Not sure what else i might have done wrong the first time except for over exposing my flats. From now on i will make sure the the "Auto Rotate" feature in my camera is turned off. The only thing that am puzzled about is why did APP create a MF with both portrait and landscape orientation?Â
I guess because this was saved as such, so APP has to assume nothing about the orientation as it can't tell.
