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 have some banding with the mosaics I have been trying, it isn't terrible and a lot of people can't see it but I know it is there and if I push the stretch too far it shows up. Â
50- 3 minute lights each panel
Master dark, flat and dark flat applied
BPM applied
2 panel mosaic
MBB set to 10% (sames as my overlap)
using lnc 1st degree with 5 iterations
Set to mosaic mode
It prompts me to check same camera and optics (just now looking at this it doesn't appear to be checked though)
Dynamic Distortion checked
Scale stop of 10
Not sure if it's the compression, but the star field itself looks a bit strange, did you post process it in some way?
@vincent-mod
Yes, I typically do post processing in PS CC, I don't think I've ever just taken what comes out of APP.
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In PS I usually stretch it more, do contrast and saturation enhancements as well as noise reduction, sharpness and clarity.
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And does the banding show up in APP or after the post processing? Just to be sure I can maybe pinpoint it more. I personally do think the noise reduction might be a bit too high as the stars aren't nicely round anymore if you look closely.
@vincent-mod
Yes, it is present in APP, if I increase the strength of the stretch you can see it.
@vincent-mod
I bet I had a couple of bad subs in the stack. On a related note is there a free tool that works like blink in PI? Will APP come out with a quick cycle preview tool?
I'm not sure about the exact release path, but it is on the list to be implemented if I'm not mistaken. I usually don't use it and just stack based on quality and 90% of all frames. APP then automatically rejects most if not all of my problematic subs.
Regarding the banding, I can't really tell either and would need the original data. You can share it on Mabula's server if you want and I can have a closer look at it (in a few days as I'm moving in between).
If I open your image and stretch it you can see some kind of border between the 2 images. This border runs from just right of the middle (horizontally) from the top to just left of the middle on the bottom, like annotated in the screenshot below, am I right?
I think the image on the right side of the mosaic was not processed right with the light pollution tool, there's some gradient left behind.
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I did not edit these separately but stacked, stitched and edited them as a whole, so the edits should have been done to the whole image.Â
 I think I tweaked a few of the settings and started getting some better results. I plan on adding some more data to this in the next few days so I'll see how it all goes together. Thanks for the reply!
Maybe it's better practice to stack and process them separately and after that stitch them together in APP. That way you don't have to worry about gradients if you use the light pollution removal tool.
I'm working on a 3-pane mosaic at this moment and got very good results with no visible borders whatsoever.Â
I'll definitely be trying different things once I have enough data for a "final" image, I appreciate your insight.
Hopefully by next week I'll throw up another attempt on here to compare it to.
