15th Feb 2024: Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta29 released - macOS native File Chooser, macOS CMD-Q fixed, read-only Fits on network fixed and other bug fixes
7th December 2023: added payment option Alipay to purchase Astro Pixel Processor from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and other countries where Alipay is used.
Hi,
I've almost run out of time on the trial and am almost ready to purchase but I'm struggling to save to tiff what I see on the preview screen. No matter whether I select "Stretch" or "DPP" or select neither the actual saved image comes out looking washed out and needs further work in PS. This seems unnecessary as the image in the preview pane has all I want already done. I should say I'm new to astrophotography so I'm probably missing something blindingly obvious!
TIA
Ken
Its the "Stretch" button that determines what is saved. Unchecked, you will get the unstretched stack. Checked, you will get the image according to the DPP settings - i.e. what you see. So you should have both stretched and DPP and perhaps AUTO all selected for starters. Opening the output in a tiff view should look like what you see in APP. If not, then maybe its your tiff viewer.
EDIT: I always have to tweak the export from APP in Lightroom though to get a really nice looking image. But APP has adjustments that can give you a nice output but its harder to work with.
Thanks Astrogee,
I think I've figured it out. If I output a 32-bit TIFF from APP then load it in Photoshop, I have to select sRGB or Monitor RGB from the View->Proof Setup menu and it shows as expected. If I then convert (in Photoshop) to a 16-bit TIFF the image becomes washed out no matter how I do the conversion. If I save as a 16-bit TIFF from APP then it loads an looks as expected in PS. Don't have the knowledge/experience to know why this is.
Cheers,
Ken
Yeah, because you stretch in APP you don't need to output in 32 bit. 16-bit is fine because you won't be doing any more stretching -cheers!
Hi Ken @kendavies & @astrogee,
It is like astrogee comments:
Its the "Stretch" button that determines what is saved. Unchecked, you will get the unstretched stack. Checked, you will get the image according to the DPP settings - i.e. what you see. So you should have both stretched and DPP and perhaps AUTO all selected for starters. Opening the output in a tiff view should look like what you see in APP. If not, then maybe its your tiff viewer.
If you have saved a stretched image in APP, let's say image.jpg, and load that image.jpg in APP into the image viewer, you will need to set the DDP preset to "no stretch (data as is)" to see what has actually been saved without applying any operation on it from the preview filter. That is the data that was saved and any other image viewer/processing application should show the same image.
Please be aware that for color images, Color ICC profiles are automatically saved in your TIFF and JPG files. It is up to the application that loads the images to propely apply these ICC profiles. Some versions and configurations of Photoshop don't do this automatically and instead would apply a wrong ICC profile instead of the one supplied with the image.. don't ask me why. This is for Adobe to answer 😉
And yes, if you save a 32bits TIFF some versions of Photoshop will not properly show the data. This is a well-known issue and affects other applications as well. Perhaps in that case, also the ICC profiles are messed up as well. So it could be a combination of both problems in Photoshop.
So my advice would be to first study in detail how your version of Photoshop deals with ICC profiles embedded in the JPGs or TIFFs and then verify the 32bits limitations of your Photoshop version.
Please let me know if this is clear and if you have any other questions 😉
Kind regards,
Mabula
