Original subtitles

okay so you're into astrophotography and

so you take images of your targets you

stack them and then after you've stacked

all of your subframes you get a master

frame that you need to process and of

course there are many uh software that

lets you do that there's like pick ins

sight but it's quite expensive you can

use Photoshop you can use some others in

terms of free software we have some

things like Cil uh which is available

for free and has a new version coming

soon as well and recently on the the

market on in in the free software free

processing software for astr photography

we have the uh CI Astro Suite by SEI

Astro Frank from SEI Astro who has his

own YouTube channel by I'll put the link

down in the description and today I want

to introduce that cityi Astro suite and

I want to follow uh one of the workflows

that Frank has published on his own

channel to process onshot color images

Broadband images for Now using an image

of m78 that I've taken from the

starfront observatories uh in Texas

during a recent live stream I'll put the

link to that live stream up above and

down in the description if you're

interested this is the result of I think

20 frames of 10 minutes each so it's a

bit over 3 hours of data uh but from a

very very dark location uh in the US and

so we'll go through the workflow

suggested by Frank the creator of that

free software and I'll also process the

same image in pix Insight uh just to

show you what we can expect from the

free City Astro Suite compared to pix

inside but because the Frank videos can

be quite quick and involved uh I also

will go through the installing of C asro

Suite because there's multiple steps if

you want to also integrate other tools

like graur starnet Plus+ Cosmic Clarity

that kind of stuff and I also try to go

a bit more slowly than Frank does into

each of the steps of this oneshot color

workflow and of course I'll have all of

the links down in the description if

you're interested in terms of the image

that we are going to use I mentioned

it's m78 and it was taken with a Redcat

61 and an ASI 2600 MC dual camera uh and

a luminance filter as I recall okay so

let's get started first with the

installation of C asro suite and the

other tools that can be used with it

okay so I am on the website for the C

Astro editing Suite also known as SAS

and to get CI Astro Suite you can just

you know click on the get it here and

you have a GitHub repository it gets

updated very very often which means that

likely my video will be out of date in

like six

months but it is because Frank is so

good at building new features into uh

into his software and the last one you

can see is like from 15 hours ago so you

just uh choose the one from your for

your os I'll be using Windows in this

video so you just click on that to

download the uh Windows version uh you

also want to install as it's as is

written here Cosmic Clarity which is

also created by Frank and this is Den

noising sharpening AI Power Tool uh that

is available for pix and sight but also

as a that is available there's an

interface for it in the CI Astro Suite

so we need to download that so I need to

go to uh Cosmic Clarity and we need to

uh download the version that works for

us so uh yeah I can go to the uh folder

there this will this will open a Google

Drive and you want to uh get the version

for your OS so for me it would be this

one so I would go ahead and download it

right so Cosmic Clarity and that those

are the two main ones but you can

actually use other things with uh SI

asro set asro or more accurately set

asro can make use of other tools as well

you have grabber.com which is our

grabert that is uh used to uh remove

backgrounds of the image CI Astros twet

has its own native way of doing that uh

but I kind of like graer that's probably

what I'll be using in this video and uh

there it is so just want to go to the

graer website and download for uh

windows at least for me uh 64 bits so

you know just download and you'll get

graper I've already done it so I'm going

to cancel my download and another thing

that you'll want for this workflow is

starnet which lets you remove stars from

your images and then you can place them

back later so you can process the

nebulosity without affecting the Stars

which is always nice so this is on the

uh starnet page and again all of the

links down in the description and for me

I will go and download the command line

interface there for Windows so starnet

V2 CLI for command line interface when

the zip uh it's fine to have command

line interface because uh CI asro Suite

has its own graphical interface that

will call the uh starnet Plus+ tool so

you just click on that to download it

and then finally another tool that can

be used I will not be using it in our

workflow but it can be useful to do a

plate solving of your images is to use

ASAP if you are using Nina for your

Imaging it's probable that on your

Imaging laptop or Imaging computer uh

you already have it installed uh but

often people don't have it installed on

their processing machine but you would

want to go ahead and go to this uh page

download the uh ASAP uh in my case

windows program there it is and also you

want to download a star base star

database um for ASAP to the the plate

solving if you use a long focal length

uh you will want to use like this d80

for me I don't really have long focal

length images so I went with D50 to save

some space and I think in a lot of cases

it's uh it's enough uh but a Frank

recommends I believe the ad in his own

uh video about using ASAP together with

uh set as Suite again this is not

necessary for this particular onot color

process uh but you know it can be

interesting I'll have the link by the

way down in the description as well to

the raw file that I'll be using for this

process so you can also have a stab at

it yourself because I I don't consider

it to be my data I I used a a remote

obsy and also I borrowed someone else's

equipment for that image I was just the

operator of the imaging software which

was the ESI a uh while you know doing

capture so I don't really own that data

I don't see myself as owning the data

really it would be Brays the guy who

basically uh built and manages starfront

obies uh in Texas who owns it I haven't

asked his permission before filming this

video I hope it's going to be fine Bray

don't kill me and if you're ever

interested in starfront upsies most

people they just send their own rig

there uh I didn't want to do that

because I need my rigs for my reviews on

the channel Etc I never know when I'll

be needing to use one of the pie of

equipment I have and yeah you can just

send your rig there and they will

install it for you and then you can just

use your own rig it's your own rig just

a at a remote location and it's honestly

a lot of fun again if you want to have a

taste of how it would look like you can

check my live stream okay so now we go

to where I have all of my downloads

there so what you want to do is just

install everything one by one it's

fairly uh simple so asop setup uh yes

and I'm just going to go ahead and uh

and click next to install ASAP and I

will finish then I can install the star

database for ASAP exactly the same uh

process and we're done with that now I

can go to graper same deal just like

install the uh the program remember the

path that uh graer set gets installed at

so I'm just going to open a a notepad

window there and and put in the path

there because I'll have I'll need to use

it later on so I'm just going to click

next and then let it install okay now

we're done and the city Astro Suite

actually does not need to be installed

so we don't need to run it yet and for

the starnet stuff it also does not need

to be installed you just need to have it

like in a folder for me I've put all of

this into their own like steady Astros

Suite downloads folder so I can do is

just unzip it I will extract all I don't

even need to show extract files when

complete and click on extract okay so

now with that we're ready to go so I

will open up the steady Astro Suite by

simply dble dble clicking on the

executable file that we downloaded

Windows will tell me that it protected

the PC but I tell it it's fine I I know

what I'm doing and after a few second

this should come up this is the CI Astro

suite and that's what we're going to be

using to process our images now first

things first I will go to preferences

there uh open preferences and you can

see you can set your graer path your

starnet executable path your ASAP path

your Cosmic clarity folder and your

working directory which reminds me I

completely forgot about Cosmic Clarity

so uh I added it to this same folder

sorry about that and Cosmic Clarity is

basically the same handling as starnet I

will just uh right click extract all

choose the uh the folder and let it

unzip there okay so now it's unzipped

there it is we have Cosmic Clarity suite

and so I should go back to CI asro suite

and as a refresher we went to

preferences and to open preferences then

you need to set the path for each of

those executables manually so we click

on the three dots here and we're going

to find the um graer folder where graer

is installed so remember how I copy

pasted uh that path into notepad there

was a reason for that so I can just uh

put it there and enter and then select

folder so that's for graer then we have

the starnet executable path which is

going to be for removing stars and so I

can just navigate to the uh starnet

folder that we just unzipped together

and go all the way in and Select starnet

Plus plus. exac there we go same for

ASAP ASAP would typically be under

program files so you can see uh C

program

files ASAP and then you can just select

asap. exec and then Cosmic Clarity it's

again the uh folder where we that we

just unzipped together so I can just go

to Cosmic Clarity Suite there and that

is the main folder there so I'm just

going to select there we go and finally

the working directory is where U the

cestra suite will save any temporary

files that it has to generate to do

processing so we'll just select maybe

what I can do is actually go to the uh

the folder where I have everything

downloaded and I'm just going to create

a new folder in there called Temp and

that's where I will put my working

working Direct Direct Dory for uh CI

asro

Suite so there it is I will just select

temp there and select folder and there

we have all of the this uh stuff put in

if you want to you can put some other

information in there like if you have a

astrometry API key and you want to use

astrometry.net for plate solving you can

use that but most of the time ASAP would

be just fine so now I can just click on

Save and we're done with those initial

pref setting now before I go a bit

further in there I want to give you an

idea of the interface you have a series

of tools there at the top with um undo

and redo the Last Action that can be

very useful but they are not as good as

what you have in pix insight as far as I

know there's no like image history

what's happened like in multi multiple

steps to your image and also when you do

an undo or redo sometimes it's not very

clear exactly what you're undoing uh

somehow sometimes I made Mis manipul

ations and I just like completely undid

curves that I had done and then there

was no way to redo them so there's still

some weird funky stuff happening there

but otherwise you have operations like

uh looking at the histogram cropping the

image removing gradients via the the

internal native gradient removal tool to

the C asro Suite or via graer you can

remove stars using starnet place them

back remove the green so this is the

same as the scnr feature in uh pixin

sight you can neutralize the background

you can change the white balance you can

extract the luminant recombine luminance

do RGB combination or extraction so all

of that is very familiar for people who

have like access to a to pix inside

already you have also a blemish Blaster

that lets you basically use it's kind of

a clone stamp tool in Photoshop if you

have a blemish in your image that you

want to remove you can use the blemish

Blaster and it will replace it by the

average of the surrounding pix CS that

kind of stuff and then we also have like

HDR multiscale transform so if you have

like an image like the oran nebula that

has very bright areas and very dark

areas and you want to kind of like put

them at the same level so we can see

everything at once that's the tool you'd

be

using we have some uh local histogram

Equalization and we also have like a

pixel math uh utility that we will be

using actually and there's some mask

stuff as well like applying a mask

removing a mask Etc we'll be using some

of those as well we also have a further

list of tools in there kind of as tabs

that more or less make it into a

workflow where you have like XF

Liberator this is to read XF files

generated by the Pix Insight stacking

tool for instance uh you can compare uh

frames before stacking and that's

actually very useful uh because it's

much faster than the Pix Insight tool

that does the same thing so I really

like that it's actually valuable even if

you have a PIX in sight in my opinion

you have Cosmic Clarity sharpen SL Den

noise and this is AI based den noising

and sharpening for the tool so I'm going

to click on the wrench there and make

sure that we select the uh Cosmic

Clarity folder once again while I'm at

it I'm not sure why we need to select

here as well as in the main preferences

but it is what it is right now and we

also have like a satellite Trail removal

provided by uh Cosmic Clarity uh we have

a static statist iCal stretch to stretch

the uh the image from a linear state to

a stretched State we have a curves

utility to apply curves to the image a

pal pallet picker is more like for um

narrow band

Imaging same uh narrow band stuff you

can stretch Stars if you remove Stars

prior to stretching and you want to

recombine them after stretching and also

some cool stuff like frequency

separation which can be useful to do

Advanced kind of noise reduction

depending on the noise pattern that you

uh that you see there's also a tool to

remove Halos on Stars I haven't used it

yet but it's there and also this

Continuum substraction uh tool can be

used when you want to do Galaxy

processing and you want to combine a

luminance a Broadband galaxy image with

like separately taken narrow band data

of that Galaxy uh so lots of very cool

Tools in there and also something that's

important to be aware of with this tool

is on the left hand side you have those

slots and those slots basically allow

you it's a bit like layers in Photoshop

kind of like a bit where uh you can load

an image into each slot you can say like

I'm going to load an image in slot zero

and Slot one and Slot two and slot three

and then later on you can say like yeah

I'll combine slot zero image with slot

two image right and you can copy you can

use this little tool there uh the copy

slot to copy whatever is in image zero

to slot one so it's kind of like an

image memory there as to what slot

contains what image and we have

something similar you have slots for

masks if you can create multiple masks

at once and you can say like I'll apply

mask from slot one from slot two etc etc

so it's a very interesting way of

representing the images that you have

loaded that is the overall interface of

the tool so with that out of the way

let's get into processing oh by the way

before we go to that next step don't

forget making those videos is a lot of

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keep going on to the processing so I'll

click here to open the image I want to

process and for me it's from the

starfront obes and uh under master this

is the image that will be processing of

m78 after a moment it gets loaded into

the software I'm going to tell it to uh

fit to the windows we have the view of

the whole image at once and just because

the image is in a linear stage we don't

see anything without doing some sort of

visual stretch so I'm going to toggle

the auto stretch to see what we are

doing so now by the way uh just FYI and

I'll put the link to that video up above

and down in the description this is the

video whose workflow I will be following

religiously because again City asro

Suite is a new tool it's a very new to

me definitely and so uh yeah I will will

follow this tutorial I'll be slightly

slower than uh Frank is I think to

explain a bit what's going on what

exactly we are doing so with this this

is an unlined auto stretch by the way uh

so that means that if there's some weird

like gradient in the image as there

usually is especially if you're in a

light polluted area but even from a very

dark area usually you will have like a

green yellow red tint to the image we

actually can double check that by uh

going to statistical stretch here uh we

can unlink uh link stretch no we can

keep link stretched actually on there

this will basically stretch all of the

color channels in the exact same way so

we can look at how the uh image looks

like natively in a way so I'm going to

just uh preview the stretch and this is

how it looks like right so we have a a

gradient that we will need to get uh rid

of at some

point so let me undo that we're back to

a a linear

image and what Frank suggests doing is

basically first removing what is called

the pedestal of the image which is

basically when uh you open up the uh the

histogram here using this histogram tool

you can see that the minimum value for

uh red green and blue seem to be around

0.01 0.02

0.007 it's actually not that bad but it

is a pedestal to the image and to kind

of sanitize the image we can remove that

and have everything go to the minimum

being zero and for that we can use the

pixel Mass tool that is available so for

that I can just go ahead click on this

little pixel Mass thing and what we're

going to do is that for each of the uh

channels we are going to say uh that

we're going to take uh slot Z and we

going to do slot 0 minus the minimum of

slot Z so what we're saying is that take

the image that is in slot zero so

remember how I mentioned slots earlier

this image was loaded into slot zero and

remove from it the uh darkest value that

you can find in the image for each

channel so that basically it's not going

to change anything from our point of

view I'm just going to click on okay it

will apply that and it's done

okay we're done it didn't change much

for us but it's apparently a nice uh

thing to do at first to kind of uh get

rid of that pedestal that we have into

the image I actually think it can help

with the stat statistical stretch later

down the road so that could be something

that is good for statistical stretch we

can double check that this did something

by opening up the histogram tool again

and now you'll see that the minimum

value for every channel is now zero

right as expected it did not click any

data I just remove that useless pedestal

that we have on the data so next step we

saw that there's a bit of a gradient in

the image so we have um two ways that we

could remove that gradient we can use

the native tool or we can use graer and

I I like both actually but I'm going to

use graper I would just recommend that

the smoothing should not be the default

uh unless you have a reason to do so I

would keep the smoothing amount to one

which basically makes graer uh remove

the least amount of nebulosity details

that it possibly can so I like to do

that and what it will do is we'll

actually invoke the graper tool that we

installed together and I'm just going to

click okay and let it do its job okay

and there it is the gradient was removed

uh successfully and actually we can

double check that uh if I go back to the

statistical stretch uh tab here and I do

a linked stretch again with uh

previewing the stretch we see that we no

longer have that weird greenish gradient

that we used to have I'm going to still

go back to linear I don't want to apply

stretch yet so now what I can do is I

can use the cosmic Clarity sharpen SL

the noise tool there remember we've

already set up the executable both

actually in the preferences and in this

wrench icon here and I'm going to set

auto stretch to on just that we can see

what we're doing and I'm going to do a

fit to preview so we can see the overall

image and what we can do is uh we will

both sharpen and the noise the image at

the same time so I'll set uh both and

then you have some um you know options

that are available you could uh treat

each RGB channel so red green and blue

channels separately you can uh say that

you want to to sharpen the Stars a lot

you want to have like a high amount of

the noise strength for for instance

there's a lot of parameters that you can

change and really what you'd want to do

ideally is just to like zoom into the

image and look at like the the noise

pattern that you see in the image for me

it is only like three hours of data

right uh so even from a very dark Zone

because this is a dark NE nebulite is

fairly noisy so I'll do is maybe like

the noise strength of

0.7 and and see what happens right so I

also can choose the the noise mode

whether I wanted to the noise only like

the the black and white information like

the the levels of brightness of the

image or whether I want it to also deal

with the color kind of information of

the image and I wanted to do both so I

will select full here and for the rest I

will let the leave the default settings

and we're going to click on execute and

see what we

get okay and the tool is done it took

quite a bit of time so uh you know let

it do its job uh also if you have an

Nvidia I I don't know maybe other gpus

make sure you have used GPU acceleration

but you can see there's actually a very

good result we can see the stars are

sharper and everything seems to be a bit

a bit sharper so we can um undo so this

is the before the tool was uh run and

then redo and this is after right so we

see there's a huge Improvement in terms

of uh noise and I think to some extent

detail this is actually pretty uh pretty

good as a result already okay now our

image is basically ready to stretch

everything so what we'll do again I'm

following the steps outlined by Frank I

will be removing the stars using uh

starnet Plus+ so I'll click on remove

stars and the first time you run it it

will ask you to select the uh executable

where starnet is which I don't know why

we have to do that because we've already

set it up in the overall preferences but

we have to do this and so I will select

that now something important to know

because I I spent one hour trying to

figure out what the heck was happening

once you have selected this folder you

cannot change it afterwards so if you

ever move starnet Plus+

uh well you have a workaround which is

to reset all of the preferences close uh

C Astro reopen it and then you can reset

this but otherwise there is no way as

far as I can tell to manually reset just

this uh thing here uh so it would be

nice for stared Plus+ to also have this

kind of wrench icon so we can reset the

folder where where it's installed

because to make this video I actually

moved folders around and then I was like

hitting my head against the wall for an

hour trying to figure out hard to make

things work again so now it should be

working we select the executable just

make sure that once You' selected it you

never move starnet Plus+ ever again uh

and I'm going to click on okay we've set

the executable I will say that the

current image is is indeed linear yes

because we haven't stretched it yet and

we'll it will say stretching the image

for started processing which might feel

like you just need to wait no you

actually need to collect that okay

button I found myself the first time

waiting five minutes on this screen

because I didn't realize it wasn't

actually doing anything I had to click

on okay first there we go so now we're

we're it's working and starnet is doing

its magic to remove the Stars okay and

starnet seems to be done so now we

actually need to save that file from

starnet Plus+ uh

so what will I do I'll probably put it

in SS download temp and then call it

like uh Stars

removed uh m78 instead of having to save

the file like that it would be nice if

we could just uh okay load it into one

of the slots directly and once it's done

it will load the starless image here

again into uh slot zero there so if we

wanted to keep the Star full image first

we would have need to uh leave it in

slot one for instance I will not reuse

the Star full image but just FYI we

could uh have basically said like okay

before applying

starnet we could use this little copy

thing to say like yeah we're going to

copy the image that's in slot zero we'll

copy it to slot one say okay and now in

slot one and now I will reapply starnet

in slot

zero so there it is we've removed the

stars in slot zero but in slot one if I

go there

I still have my image with all of the

stars that's kind of like the fun thing

with those uh slots

there and by the way if I go into uh

slots I can rename slot and I can say

that uh slot number zero I can press

okay I can call it something like uh

main poop and you can see now it's

called Main and again under slots I

could say uh rename slots and say that

slot number one will be renamed to starf

whatever that that's fine right so now I

know exactly what I'm doing what is in

each slot Etc uh so yeah we have the

starless image some of the stars were

not removed uh that's fine so anyway now

that we have our starless image we can

finally uh stretch it so I can go ahead

into the statistical stretch uh tool and

now we'll do a linked stretch I'll keep

the default settings if you feel like

the stretch is too aggressive you could

change the target median to something

else for now I'll just uh keep it to uh

to this and I will click on preview

stretch and what's interesting is and I

F I I don't know if I'm doing something

weird or I'm not thinking things through

correctly is that this preview stretch

actually seems to just apply the stretch

to the image so I'm not sure whether it

should be a preview stretch name but you

know it is what it is it seems to be

working as is so now we have stretched

the image and uh because we have

stretched the uh image we could also now

try to kind of uh fix those uh like the

the traces where the stars have been

left over in the image um or like the

the Halos there around the stars I could

go ahead and use a blemish Blaster here

and say like okay uh where do I see a

nice blemish here here is a nice uh

blemish I could say that I want the

correction radius to be a bit larger

than the BL blemish itself something

like that that's a bit too large so

something like that and then click on

that and buom like we we've kind of

removed that

blemish but I'm going to undo because

it's a lot of work I don't feel like it

uh but if you really want it to be like

precise you would you know remove all of

those little Halos that are remaining

from uh the starnet Plus+ stuff but yeah

I'm I'm too lazy for that now the next

thing that uh Frank recommends doing is

to do a background neutralization which

is interesting to me because in in pix

Insight I'm used to doing uh background

neutralization before we stretch the

image and also it's probably not

necessary in our case because grabert as

far as I understand it does a background

neutralization already uh but you know

let's let's uh do it just so that we

know exactly how it works for that it's

this uh little icon there like this uh

icon I will click on it and I need to

select an area of background that is

representative of background so maybe I

can select like can drag and drop here

we selected this little uh Red Square

here and I click on apply neutralization

and now it's done uh so you'll see that

it's changed a tiny bit it's used the

color that it found there and it

subtracted kind of that color to the

entire image I kind of feel like I want

to um also before doing the stretching

and before removing the Stars I would

want to uh actually open up the image in

Cil do a photometric color calibration

and then import it back s Astro that

might actually be even better but for

now I'll stick to just this piece of

software because it's it's complicated

enough as it is okay now that we're here

if I zoom into the uh to the

image you can see that the areas there

are quite bright actually at the center

of m78 and so if we want to reveal some

more details in there we can use the HDR

tool there so that's uh uh the

equivalent inpix inside to the HDR

multiscale transform and uh in there

I'll you know leave all of those

defaults I'll find the nebula itself

here we

go and with the default settings for now

I'm just going to click on preview see

what happens okay that's actually quite

nice we can see a bit more what's

happening in this uh nebula let's try

with a slightly smaller number of scales

do a preview see if we see something a

bit uh different yeah I actually I

prefer that we get back more of those uh

details that have been drowned out into

the bright parts of the nebula that's

probably what I'm going to use so I'm

going to click on apply here and there

we go we have the uh HDR multi

multiscale transform that's being

applied to our image okay so now we are

kind of ready to do some uh curves uh so

we're going to go to Curves uh utility

and we can do kind of uh brightness

curve to do contrast adjustment ments

and to add points of the curves

apparently you need to double click

there so now we're double clicking to

add points and I can say like okay the

very dark background I want to like pull

down there and I can adjust it so that I

have some contrast in the in the image

and I can choose how much contrast I

want at each level of brightness this

exactly like the curves in uh pix sight

so I kind of like what I see here

although I would love to have like a

preview on off kind of button maybe

there is one and I'm missing it but I

want to see like what was the image

before the curves and after the curves

before I actually apply the curve uh to

the image but you know I'm just going to

apply the curve so here we go the curve

is now applied onto uh onto the image

and what I can do next is actually also

part of the uh the workflow that uh

Frank has in his tutorial which as you

can see like in the background there's a

lot of green uh image which is not

something that you would get in

Broadband uh images of uh of targets

including m78 so we can use the uh green

removal tool that's somewhere in here

there it is it is this little uh button

there remove green so I'm going to click

on that just click on apply and there

like all of that green in the image is

now gone we have something a bit more

looking like what I want to uh to see I

could play a little bit with the curves

like that

to further enhance the uh contrast that

we get and I'm just going to apply the

curve uh once again just because now I

really like all of the nebulosity that

we're getting out and now what we could

do is actually play with uh some masks

or I could just like try directly on

this image you know to adjust the chroma

of the uh oops of the uh

image like to get a bit more like of a

Punchy image image uh but I'm not going

to going to do that I'm going to right

click to remove those points I could try

to play with the saturation to see what

we would

get actually kind of like that the whole

saturation onto the uh onto the image

like that so I'm just going to uh to

apply this curves but we could also add

masks and that's one of the really cool

is my curve applied yes now it is I

could add masks that's one of the really

cool features that we have so we can go

into masks create a mask and and I can

say that I want to add a lightness mask

and we can tell s asra that we want to

blur that mask by a certain amount I can

I can select the entire image click

preview mask and then we can see how our

lightness mask would look like and I can

save that mask and I can save to uh a

mask slot and say that it's going to be

slot number zero and that's our

lightness mask and I could also have

like a second mask uh that could be uh a

chrominance mask for like which amount

of the image has the most color

effectively and I can again you know

blur that mask preview the mask and that

looks good to me actually I probably

want to blur it more preview the mask

and that looks good so I'm going to save

the mask into uh a slot again and this

is going to be the mask slot

one and then something that if we wanted

to like apply some um saturation only to

the red color for instance we could go

ahead and create uh a color mask for the

color red that could be very useful in

things like Naran processing as well I

I'm going to blur it quite a bit and I'm

going to preview the mask and that gives

me like a blurred um mask image that

tells us where the color red is so I'm

going to save that as the mask slot uh

number what

two right so I'm going to say okay and

now we have multiple masks Crea this is

exactly what uh Frank does in his video

and I could say like uh going back to

masks mask slots and I can rename a mask

slot and say number one uh number zero

sorry is

lightness okay and now I can uh again go

to mask slots rename Mas mask slots uh

number one is going to be uh

chroma and number three

again uh number two sorry is going to

and number two mask is going to be what

uh it's going to be red pop there you go

so now we have three masks and I can um

load like the lightness mask and have it

applied to the image or I can apply the

chroma or I can apply the red I'm going

to try to apply the red mask and select

chroma there and then see what happens

if I increase the chroma of just like

the red parts of the uh of the image so

it's kind of nice or I could try

saturation instead no chroma is better

there it is so I can you know play on

each of the colors

independently and I could also let's say

apply the chroma mask the chroma mask is

applied and again I'm going to try to

add some chroma to that see what happens

so it does like kind of give some

punchiness to uh to the image so I'm

going to apply that curve and what we

could also do as well is go to uh mask

and we're going to go to mask slot

number zero which is lightness and say

that we want to invert the mask I'm

going to say yes the mask has been uh

inverted so I can apply that mask from

slot zero and now I could say like using

this brightness curve I could drag the

curve a little bit down to kind of uh

affect the background more than the main

image just to increase the contrast a

tiny little bit uh so that's what it

would give us and I can apply the curves

so you can see we can play with the

masks and the curves

together uh it's a bit unwieldy but it

works and that's really pretty amazing

okay so now what I want to do is I want

to combine the Stars again now the stars

that we extracted were linear from a

linear image effectively so we need to

stretch the Stars so we'll need to use

this star stretch tool that we have at

the top let me make sure that I do not

have any mask applied how do I unapply

so to unapply the mask I will click on

that which does not actually delete the

mask it just removes the mask from the

current image uh so that can be a little

bit uh confusing but what I want to do

next is to place back the Stars before

placing back the Stars I will need to

stretch them so I will need to open the

star image that we saved earlier which

means that uh once we open it it's going

to be on slot zero slot zero will

replace what whatever we have we don't

want that so I am going to use the copy

feature to say that what we have in uh

slot

zero so which is called main will be

copied to slot number two there and I'm

going to say

okay and uh I will rename that image in

slot number two uh it's going to be

renamed to what to um

starless processed po there we go so now

we have the starless processed image in

slot number two and I'm free to open the

star for the Stars image that we create

so much earlier in the video and

actually um I had named it Stars removed

M8 m78 but actually uh stars of m78 the

Stars removed was actually uh loaded

into the image so now that I have loaded

the Stars I can go into star stretch and

I'm probably going to just leave

everything as is and re uh re refresh

the preview and those are the stars and

it look kind of nice uh there's a little

bit of teal color again like kind of

green color so I can uh undo this and

remove the the green and try again okay

I kind of like that so now we have a

Stars image with the uh Stars themselves

that are stretched so we can go ahead

and recombine everything together so now

that we have our Stars I'm just going to

copy them into slot number three like

when in doubt copy into a new slot

basically so you make sure you don't

lose uh some of your work so now it's

copied to slot number three I will go

ahead and re rename the slot number

three to uh Stars

stretched pop there we go so now that we

have that we can place back the Stars

into the image in Franklin's own video

He suggests using a lightness mask so

that you'll you'll add back the Stars

more into the bright areas of the image

compared to the dark areas of the image

I'm not sure I'm a big fan of that it

feels like I'm cheating even though

we're doing a lot of cheating but I

don't know that that's where I place my

boundary which is silly but it is what

it is and I'm going to just click on

that little uh add the stars back into

the image and we're going to say that

the Bland type is a screen Bland and the

starless image is going to be this

number two slot called starless

processed and the Stars only image is

going to be Stars stretched and uh I am

going to just apply with the default

options okay and here we go with the uh

image in uh slot zero that has all of

those stars back and it looks like a

really nice image to be honest now what

I do notice is that if I zoom in uh the

image looks quite uh noisy again so and

it looks like chrominance noise so I

think while I was doing the chroma

curves I added back some noise so maybe

I can try like Cosmic Clarity again and

so I'm back into Cosmic Clarity and I'm

going to try to uh execute Cosmic

Clarity uh both no not no sharpen just

denoise and I'm going to do a full uh

denoise and yes strength again of maybe

0.7 and execute just to see if we get

something better I can undo if I wish

okay and we have Cosmic Clarity has run

on the image for Den noise again and the

result is actually really nice I like

what I'm seeing this is pretty much I

would say our final image with CI Astro

suite and I think it's pretty good image

I do remember Franklin doing like a

white balance of the uh image so us

using that little white balance tool

which seems to be a photometric color

calibration I'm not sure exactly what

this is um it that says it's going to

use the uh the Stars so I'm just going

to uh apply that to the image and see

how this affects it so this is so this

is the before where the image is quite

warm in terms of color and after where

it looks a bit colder in terms of uh

colors uh so again I would be used in

pixel sight to doing like spect TR

photometric color calibration before uh

stretching but you know I like what I

see there this is a really nice process

of uh of this image it's a beautiful

image again obtained with equipment as

at starfront obies and I'm going to go

ahead and save as this uh image so for

that I will say that I will save it as a

tiff file so we have all of the

information so I will call it like

m78

processed. Tiff uh and uh save it will

ask me the bit depth I will to take

32bit floating point I have all of the

information from the image and I will

also save as again and save it as uh a

JPEG or PNG so that we have m78 uh

processed.

PNG and we can you know keep it as a PNG

file and there we go it's uh saved so

let me show you quickly how this all

look like in pix Insight with the same

image so here we are in pix insight this

is the initial image let me do an auto

stretch so that's what we started with

again and in pix and sight I do the

usual stuff first graer to remove the

background uh gradient so that gives us

this right this is very similar uh to

what we had then blur exterminator to

get more details and sharpen the stars

in the image then noise exterminator uh

the new version of noise exterminator

looks like it's working really really

well to remove the noise and the image

then uh I also did some uh

spectrophotometric color calibration by

the way and then I can stretch the image

I can remove the Stars I can do some HDR

multiscale transform so this is like on

this core the uh before and after and I

can keep going so scnr to remove a lot

of that uh greenish color then uh some

curves and curves and more curves and

curves and curves playing with the

colors basically quite a lot there and

that's at the end after all of the

curves have been uh done and then I

noticed that I had uh quite a bit of

noise back so I actually ran noise

exterminator again just like we did uh

with Cosmic Clarity in uh SI Aster suite

and this is what we're getting so that

is the uh result of the starless image

so now I could play and add back the

stars and for removing the Stars I used

star exterminator rather than starnet

and this is the image that we get once

we add back the Stars I'm not quite

finished because I wanted to make the

Stars smaller so I use the uh star

reduce script something like that so

under utilities uh star reduction there

it is star reduction script and the

stars are much smaller less noticeable

now and then did some curves a little

bit more and that's basically my uh

final image from pix andite so now let's

compare both of those images one by one

uh that I got from City Astro Suite

completely free and from pixon sight

which is €300 plus blur exterminator

noise exterminator and what star

exterminator which together are

something like $200 a bit more uh so uh

yeah free software compared to5

$600 let's see the difference between

the two okay so here we go this is the C

Astro processed version free everything

is free and this is processed with pixin

sight pixin sight CI asro s Astro pick

ins sight it's very interesting to see

that

I've ended up processing quite

differently I think the uh image the

colors overall in pixite are cooler than

the warmer colors in CI asro the Pix

inside image definitely has more

contrast I managed to get more contrast

more easily than the CI Astro image um

like if you if you see look at those

like kind of gr brownish nebulosity if

you look at them in pix inside suddenly

they're much more visible and contrasty

compared to the image that I got from SE

Astro but still this is a banging image

in CI asro I do prefer and maybe it's

simply because I'm more used to pix

Insight I do prefer the image that I get

in pix inide but I really like what I

see in CI asra as well and if we look

into the details of m78 this is what we

get from pix and sites I like this

beautiful blue color that I was able to

get together with all of those super

crazy details I would love to actually

crop on this and just zoom on this this

is beautiful and this is the same with

uh uh the uh SII Astro suite and I think

that it does show really at this stage

how I think pix Insight is still quite a

bit better uh is it infinitely better

since it costs infinitely more money no

uh but it's still like I think pix

inside is still quite Superior and this

is like both process to the best of my

ability in both software that said I'm

much more used to pix ins sight and S

asro Suite is in its infancy and it

keeps being updated all the freaking

time so anyway let me know in the

comments which image you prefer it'll be

very interesting in seeing what you

actually prefer in terms of end uh

processing and while you add it please

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you guys you know it you make this

channel possible I'll have the list of

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the video while we zoom into this m78

image because you guys are rock stars

thank you so so much for making this

channel possible anyway I'd love to hear

your thoughts let me know down in the

comments have fun testing out CI Astro

Suite I hope this was a useful video as

always thank you so much for watching

don't forget whenever you came to look

up at the stars and I'll see you next

time

I

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