Hi everyone
The is one of the utilimate no no's by the authors of PI and few users.
I would say that it is just a matter of personal preferences about astronomical image processing. Vicent is one of our most "extremists" in the "documentary school"
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I'm more open minded. There are many cases where painting a mask (or using clone stamp) may be a valid solution, and in fact, would give a significant shortcut. The human brain is a very complex and sophisticated tool. What you can easily discriminate (segment) on a image, may become very hard to do algorithmically. That's why there is a whole image processing field dedicated to this task. The problem, is when you paint arbitrary masks, or perform local adjustments that alters the image properties without considerating it's global context. For example, sharpening only one galaxy in an image of a group of them is not right for me. But, if you are making a large scale image, bluring the original, and remove some bright stars with the clone stamp to avoid huge haloes, it may be fine (there are ways to do that with other tools, but if you have other high frecuency and bright objects, it becomes a real pain). As I see, for AIP, painting should be an aid just in very justified exceptions, not a tool to be used regularly.
However, a prohibition on paint tools is a bit difficult to swallow.
They can be quite useful in many circumstances.
They can be used for good or evil so to speak IMO.
Exactly. Consider that as an advice, not a prohibition.
Having said that, there should be painting tools, and a lot of other things that we are not using for AIP, or don't like. For me, PixInsight is a general purpose image processing package. We should have tools to engage in as many fronts as we want. From artistic to scientific purposes. I use it for some colaborations with physisics, and also for my own classes (once I wrote a program that tried to automatically solve a puzzle, from a picture of the pieces on a table, using the PCL libraries).
I was well aware of the reasons for his concern that ken couldn't contribute anything....specifically his masking technique...this would be true of R Jay Gabany, and probably Gendler, as well. And this is fine with me......it just seems odd that a person wouldn't be able to contribute to a group on and about Astrophotography, and particularly PixInsight....because of one of his masking techniques.
That was an exageration. I believe that every person has something to add. A personal point of view, experience... Every input may inspire another person to solve it's own problem, or create a new application/tool/process. Also, not questioning things, and keeping a black & white mind about right and wrong will always lead to a stale state. No progress has even beeing made without pushing the limits in some way.
After saying that, imposing heavy restrictions may become a tool to increase innovation too. Vicent's approach heavely impacts the research on new algorithms and methods. May not be easiest of faster approach, but indeed benefits we all.
So, to conclude... before asking yourself if something is right or wrong, acceptable or not, start by analysing your motives and goals. Do you want to "solve the problem" quickly? Do you want to learn about image processing? Astronomical imaging is way to exploit your artistic side, without restrictions, or you want to show others the wonders of the universe as they "really" are?
The bottom line, you have to be honest, with yourself and others. If you are after a pleasant representation, and artistic view, call your work that way. If you want to be in a "documentary school", then you have to be rigorous, and inform too what you are representing.
PS: And remember, there are always shades of gray
