Color DSLR images only open in Grayscale

[thomsdak]

PixinSight will only open my color DSLR images in Grayscale.  My camera is a Nikon D5500 and the images open in other processing programs fine.  Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

[Niall Saunders]

Hi,

Let's try and understand . . .

You take images with your DSLR camera - fine - how are you saving these?
(What format are you using to transfer the images from the DSLR into the PC?)

It may well be the case that you are asking PixInsight to read in an image that 'contains' colour information, but which has not yet been processed into a colour image.

What other software are you using (that reads an image in and displays it in colour)? What if you ask PixInsight to open a 'daylight' image that you have taken with the DSLR (that has been downloaded from the DSLR in the same way as mentioned above)?

[thomsdak]

Hi,

My camera uses a Nikon program "Camera ControlPro 2" to control the camera.  The images go through a sub-program called ViewNX 2 in the Nikon .nef format.  I can open and view the files directly in ViewNX 2 or from a file in my computer (Mac).  I can open the images immediately (in addition to ViewNX 2) in a program called Affinity Photo or my computer's "Preview" program.

I'm afraid that I do not know what you mean by opening a 'daylight' image.  I am still a novice at these things.

Ken Thompson

[Niall Saunders]

Hi Ken,

First - don't worry about being a novice We all had to start spmewhere!

All of those programs that you jave mentioned are most likely performing what is known as "DeBayering" to the RAW (.nef format) images that you are transferring from your camera.

PixInsight can also do this process as well (only, better !!) - however, you may have to experiment a little bot just to get the settings right for your images. Again, don't worry, once you have things 'set' for this particualr Process, you can actually set them as the default settings.

But, the reason that I mentioned opening up a 'normal daylight' RAW (.nef) is that there will be far more 'colour' present in an image taken during the day (for example, outside, with blue sky, green grass, and something red as well - if possible). Knowing that these colours were present in the RAW image makes it much easier to select the required settings for the DeBayer Process. Trying to do this on an astronomical image may not reveal any colour whatsoever - certainly not at the start of your processing sequence (this is absolutely normal, so don't try and run before you can walk).

Do some tests and get back to us.

[thomsdak]

I thought I had success.  I changed the DSLR RAW settings in Format Explorer to 'Pure RAW' and that worked last night.  All images opened in RGGB format although with a very strong green tint.  However, today the same images, as well as previous images I took, all opened in Grayscale.  I even took some pictures in my office and they opened in Grayscale.  By the way, I did take some pictures in my office before my original input and they opened in Grayscale.  Last night, after changing the DSLR RAW settings these office pictures opened in RGGB.  Once again, I am at a loss.  Sorry for the confusion.

Ken

[Alejandro Tombolini]

Hi Ken, this video may help.

Saludos, Alejandro.

[Alejandro Tombolini]

All images opened in RGGB format although with a very strong green tint. 

Hi Ken, this is normal. This video shows how to neutralize the background. Hope it helps.