Hi

[DaveS]

I'm Dave, and the 'new boy on your Block'.

I have been astro-imaging for about 8 years now, and have a small observatory located in South Suffolk, UK. You can see this on my website at:   http://www.progressiveastroimaging.com/davesastronomy/

My reason for joining this forum is that on the dedicated astro-imaging forum ( http://www.progressiveastroimaging.com/ ) that I co-admin, we have been having some in-depth discussion on the relative merits of Pixinsight (PI) and Photoshop (PS), and some example images  'posted' indicated that some of the process algorithms in PI may produce better results on astro images than does PS.

Always looking for ways of improving my images, I have downloaded PI on a trial licence, in order to see if it will extract more from my images.

I only downloaded PI yesterday, and my first impressions were that it's user interface and method of operation is very different to other processing software that I have used. I guess that because I'm used other processing software, I find that PI cannot be used intuitively, but needs to be learnt from the 'bottom up'.

This learning process is, in my opinion, severely hampered by the lack of any real documentation (user manual).

The video tutorials are helpful, but not the same as having a written user guide to hand when working with the software as a new user.

That said, I believe that PI has some real benefits to offer, and I will attempt to ‘get to grips’ with it during the 29 day of the trial I have left. If I like it, then I will buy it.

Fortunately, one of your Pixinsight Gurus is a member of the forum mentioned above, and has already been very helpful.

I will no doubt be ‘picking your brains’ over the next month, and look forward to exchanging ‘posts’ with you.

Regards

Dave

[Niall Saunders]

Welcome aboard Dave,

Yes - I think everyone here, new or old, would love to have a full user manual to go with the software - so much so that it is almost an 'in-house joke'. That said, ALL of us have got where we are by just 'using' PI, and by getting constant feedback here on the Forum, without recourse to the non-existant manual.

And most of us also concede that the PI development team simply could not have achieved what has been achieved if they had had to write a detailed manual as they went along.

some example images  'posted' indicated that some of the process algorithms in PI may produce better results on astro images than does PS

Whilst that is nice to hear, an 'expert' using PS may still produce a 'better' end result than a 'novice' using PI. However, once you start to see what CAN be done, often very simply, using PI then you soon find reasons to 'try harder' in PI

Most importantly, there are no 'novice questions' here on the Forum - rather there are just questions that YOU haven't asked before. And you will find LOTS of people willing to jump in and help you where they can.

Have fun

[mmirot]

Harry has a nice start to a written Manual and some good videos too.

Ask any other question and we will help.

Max

[Harry page]

Hi Dave

Good to see you here 

Ask away if you have any questions , as there are some very knowldgeable people here ( some of them nice  )

I hope Pi will reward you time 

I am sure it is a 45 day trial , its just the installer telling you 30 days

See you here or there

Harry

[Silvercup]

Hi Dave:

There is an Unofficial Reference guide compiled by Rogelio Bernal:

http://blog.deepskycolors.com/PixInsight/

Best, Silvercup.

[DaveS]

That is very useful indeed 'silvercup', thank you for the 'link' 

Dave