I am not aware of any video tutorials yet. If any have been created, please let me know! Version 3.2 will be released soon, so hopefully someone will create a video tutorial after its release.Hi John,
Has anyone produced a video using your script?
Eric
John,
Thanks so much for this wonderful tool. I am using v3.2 beta. The first time I used on a 2 panel wide M31 mosaic I used defaults and with 'Overlay' mode got a really good and smooth join. I couldn't discern the overlap join portion at all - even zoomed in.
I did have a big problem with gradients. One of the panels was way darker than the other and had seemingly had a different white reference point. When I tried to calibrate color via PCC or AutoColor or manual ColorCalibration before and after the joining the panels via PM; the end result after stretching the RGB portion of the mosaic was terrible. One could clearly make out the two panels in the mosaic. The colors were different and when I tried to apply a curves or other tweak - it just made it worse.
I tried various combinations and methods. I focused on color calibration as I thought that was the key factor. I use LinearFit when making masters after DynamicCrop and early on I wanted to try to this as well for the panels, but of course that tool failed when applied to different mosaic panels so I looked for other solutions. Then I re-discovered LightVortex Mosaic Tutorial and within it a link to David Ault's site where he provides a script for doing LinearFit on mosaic panels called "dnaLinearFit."
I applied this tool to my panels just before starting the mosaic integration process and the end-result was exactly what I had hoped for: seamless mosaic with good color and balanced lightness.
M31 is of course an LRGB target. As you suggested I created separate masters for lum and rgb for each panel and then ran lum and rgb separately through the mosaic joining process to produce two mosaics. I re-applied some DBE to each and I then stretched each one and finally did a LRGB combine to form the final mosaic. Worked great!. The following is just after a basic LRGB combine.
View attachment 10407
Thanks. When developing new software, it's really useful to see problem cases. It's hard to think of all situations! I will look into it as soon as you send the data.John,
This image shows the differential in lightness between my "raw" rgb masters. They are linear; with the individual R, G, B that make up each master having been aligned, linear fit, cropped and DBE'd. My luminance master (actually Optec LPro) show the same issue as noted image. This image is produced by applying a linked (default) ST to the "rgb_1" image and then applying the same stretch to "rgb_2". I have no idea why there is such a difference between masters. I did capture various lights over a month's time. Like my non-mosaic lights, I capture some of each filter/panel and then go back iteratively add some more to help average out any moon age or other deficiencies common to shooting lights over periods of weeks.
View attachment 10413
Will provide requested images in my next post.
Thanks. When developing new software, it's really useful to see problem cases. It's hard to think of all situations! I will look into it as soon as you send the data.
Regards, John Murphy
This has been an interesting mosaic to analyse. The problems visible in the saturated lower image are due to intensity scale errors. The color difference between the left and right sides of the mosaic is directly due to a scale error. The blue horizontal band on the left of the image is a little more complicated. The scale error has introduced an invalid gradient correction that tracks the brightness of the galaxy. Target gradient correction is on by default, so this invalid gradient correction has been propagated across the target image. The target image gradient graph, with default settings, is shown below:Just to show what I am seeing without using dnaLinearFit prior to using PM. I took the two masters linked above; applied the pixel math to make sure near black is black and then the MosaicTrim tool. This is what I have after a default join using PM:
View attachment 10415
One can see some gradient issue left center and the color is off in the two panels. Applying an extreme saturation curve to this and one can plainly see the issues.
View attachment 10417
I have uploaded the help for v3.2This looks really useful, but at the risk of asking a really dumb question, where do I find the prerequisites and quick start guide documentation? I see the pop-ups for buttons on the script control panel, but I can't find the anything on https://pixinsight.com/doc/#Scripts, and no links to these guides in script. Is the most recent just what is posted here in #24 - #40? Thanks - Jeff
edit - nevermind - found it at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sxPP-L2WMMQEESTsZVFEtQr8xr1ugti4/view?usp=sharing
Thanks!
I need to finish the help file, and perform some extra testing.John, when do you expect to have 3.2 included in the official distribution?
Larry Phillips