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.
Hello,
I recently downloaded APP to try it, it seems to be a very interesting and powerful software.
I have a couple of questions concerning the colour image processing using RGB or LRGB images.Â
Is APP able to recognize automatically the used filters and integrate separately each channel or we have to do the integration manually for each channels?
It seems that APP doesn't not remember the calibration file path, most of time these paths are identical, it would be less time consuming if we do not have te re enter each time the complete path.
All these questions may result from my ignorance of how to use correctly APP, in this case I would be sorry.
Thanks
Regards.
Pascal
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Hi Pascal,
Currently, APP won't automatically recognize with which filter the data was shot. So you will need to process the different filter data yourself manually. It's high on my priorities list though, to implement multi-channel (and multi-session) processing, due to high demand 😉
I am not sure what you refer to by to "calibration file path", can you be a bit more specific? Do you refer to caching the used master calibration files perhaps used for certain light frames ?
Kind regards,
Mabula
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Hello,
thank you for your answer, good thing to read that I am impatient to test it (do you plan also to do APP be able to automatically handle images with different binning? (LRGB imaging use sometime RGB images in 2x binning) .
My second remark is just about the fact that we have to select each time the path for dark, bias, flat, etc. files APP doest not remember the path used for each type of file, these files are not always in the same directory and the navigation to retrieve the correct path is a bit boring. If APP would remember of the path it would be a bit more practice, but may be I am to lazy.
Thank you.
Regards.
Pascal
Hi Pascal,
You're most welcome 😉
do you plan also to do APP be able to automatically handle images with different binning? (LRGB imaging use sometime RGB images in 2x binning
Are you concerned about being able to register frames with different image scales? If so, this is no problem for APP. APP will recognise that there will be an image scale difference of a factor of 2 or 3 ( or 1/2, 1/3) relative to the chosen reference. Frame quality calculations and parameters are adjusted to reflect different image scales s well (so the quality calculations are corrected for different image scales 😉 ).
My second remark is just about the fact that we have to select each time the path for dark, bias, flat, etc. files APP doest not remember the path used for each type of file, these files are not always in the same directory and the navigation to retrieve the correct path is a bit boring. If APP would remember of the path it would be a bit more practice, but may be I am to lazy.
Yes, it would need to cache then the location of your darks, flats and bias for a certain project, because each project will have them in other folders I would think. Creating a cache for this can be done off course, but it will have to wait for now due to other more pressing priorities, see:
https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/development-priorities/current-priorities/
Kind regards,
Mabula
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Thank you for these answers,
when I try to register frames with different binning I get this message after calibration step (star analysing) : Dark calibration is not possible due to different frame dimensions the light to be calibrated has a dimension of: 695 x 519 the calibration frame has a dimension of: 1391 x 1039
I am certainly doing something wrong but it seems that calibrating frames with different binning in one step is not as simple as I thought.
Regards.
Pascal
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Hi Pascal,
Yes, if you are binning your lights, you wil need to make binned calibration frames as well. Depending on the sensortype (CCD vs. CMOS) the change of noise characteristics of the unbinned versus binned data isn't something you can easily calculate accurately and I wouldn't recommend such an approach.
Kind regards,
Mabula
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Hello,
yes I know that, sorry if I was not very clear (English is not my first language, as you have probably guessed) I hoped that APP would automatically calibrate ans resize the light frames according the chosen reference frame and with the correct darks (binned and unbinned automaticity selected), like for example MaxinDl does (the more easy preprocessing I found among all the software I tested) . I do not found also how to use directly the master dark without to have to recreate them every time. Sorry for all these questions, may be I have to test more APP, not to much time for the moment, APP particular interface and philosophy require some learning.
Thank you for your patience.
Best regards.
Pascal
Hi Pascal,
No problem, registration of data that's binnen with unbanned data is no problem. But rescaling frames for calibration is always suboptimal, especially for your bias and dark signals and noise characteristics. The software needs to know if real binning is applied or not. Depends on sensor technology and even camera brands and models. It's very difficult to do it correctly for all camera's. I haven't implemented this in APP yet I am afraid...
You don't need to recreate the master dark every time, you only need to create it once 😉 . You can directly load the master frame(s) in a next session using any of the load buttons. APP will recognise from the metadata that it is a Master dark and should be used as such.
Let me know if this helps 😉
Mabula
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Hello,
thank you,I understand, I didn't imagine to rescale frame for calibration but after calibration and before registration (to register binned with unbinned frames) .
I made all my master darks without problem, they appear in the list (binned and unbinned) and I get this message when I try to calibrate my light frames (binned and unbinned) : Dark calibration is not possible due to different frame dimensions
 the light to be calibrated has a dimension of: 1391 x 1039
 the calibration frame has a dimension of: 695 x 519
I don't understand why, if APP recognize automatically the correct calibration file all would be ok, of I have to calibrate separately the binned and unbinned frames.
A thing very annoying is that I have to click ok to confirm the error for every frame ... please could you add an 'ok for all' button (and in general for the other same type of message, thanks)
Thank you .
Pascal
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a little precision, I got the error message during the star analysis.
I got also the error message with normalization, 90 'ok' clicks later it completed .... same thing with the integration process, to much clicks to do ... to see the final result
Hi Pascal,
Apologies for my late response.
Yes, I understand, the best way currently would be to calibrate your binned and unbinned frames separately, and then load the calibrated frames and proceed with 3) Analyse stars. In that way you will prevent the warnings, I will have a look if we can disable it after the first warning.
Kind regards,
Mabula
