FIT images Post Processing: which software are you using ?

itarrow

I finally got my ASIAIR Pro and I am having lot of fun using it with my ASI294MC Pro. Got some nice live stacking and good FITs files to work on.

Now I need to learn how to get some color out of those FIT images, which seems to be B&W.

I understand this will happen during post processing, I tried using GIMP but got no results in getting the same colors I was seeing during live stacking, I have searched around and saw lot of suggestions about different softwares, but not a clear “winner”, so I’d like to know if there is any suggestion about a software which would help a noob like me to process fit images and finally get some color out of it without being too hard to be used.

w7ay

itarrow wvreeven You do not want to do this with Gimp but should use DeepSkystacker, Siril, ASTAP or (if you want to pay money) AstroPixelProcessor or PixInsight.

You can even use ASIFITSView application inside the ASIStudio suite to deBayer FITS images from ZWO cameras (it will select the correct Bayer arrangement for you).

Click on the Bayer icon in FITSView (the menu icon with the 2x2 RGB array) to deBayer, and once you see a color image, use the contextual menu in the image to save the file to TIFF or PNG.

It is probably uses a fast, crude deBayering algorithm; I am not sure if it even has a Lanczos filter to get better color fidelity, or uses color Drizzle algorithm when the image is rescaled. But if you want free, there you go (the usual "you get what you pay for" applies).

Chen

wvreeven

Images taken with a color camera need to be debayered for color to become visible. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter
You do not want to do this with Gimp but should use DeepSkystacker, Siril, ASTAP or (if you want to pay money) AstroPixelProcessor or PixInsight.

elpajare

You can put Startools on the list. I was in the same situation and in the end I opted for this software.
It has a very simple work flow and it is not one of those that you have to have a doctorate to make them serve.

johnpd

The latest version (1.10) of Affinity Photo will now process .FITS files directly. It is reasonably priced at $55.

JohnD

astrosatch

+1 for Startools. IMO the best post processing astro software on market for its money.

It doesn't offer stacking though. For this you can use DSS.

Andrej

itarrow

Tried both Startools and APP, but the learning curve seems to be quite steep vs the results I can get straight out of ASI FITS Viewer and Snapseed: only issue I have now is getting ASI FITS Viewer to load lights without crashing when using calibration (bias/flat) files to remove vignetting, at least for my old images.

For new ones, I'll use calibration straight in ASI Live and see if I can get rid of vignetting and finally have some good images, or at least better than the already good ones I've got so far.

astrosatch

itarrow Tried both Startools and APP, but the learning curve seems to be quite steep vs the results I can get straight out of ASI FITS Viewer and Snapseed:

Well, you can't really compare ASI FITS Viewer and Snapseed to real astrophotography processing software. You can do so much more with latter. Astrophotography isn't really easy or cheap hobby. If you throw money into equipment and stop yourself at putting time into processing, that is only half of it. The real beauty lies in 'empty' parts of the image. And with time and persistence you can extract unseen detail you thought there was none. I had moments when after many months of learning and processing I decided to reprocess old image just to get it better and deeper. Also adding new data(next year) to old one makes better image to work with. So time is of essence here. And I don't mean ASAP. Take it slow and gather lots of good data with calibration files and do good processing. Believe me, you'll be satisfied at the end.

Andrej