Review of Imaging software

2007-2011, HDRSoft, 99$

Photomatix Pro is probably one of the simplest HDR software to use.

On the dump displayed at left, the 3 small images at right were loaded in MS-Photo Editor over which I opened Photomatix to show you what images it loaded.

Through an ergonomic and efficient interface, the process will assist you. It will request you to select 2 of more exposure-compensated images (e.g. one underexposed at -2 EV and another one overexposed at + 2EV), whether you want to align source images by matching features, to reduce or not ghosting artifacts, noise and the chromatic aberration. Based on these settings, it will combine your images in a few seconds. The image will be displayed in HDR what could be the limitations of your video card and diplay.

In a last step, you can fusion exposures or better, apply a tone mapping. This last processes the resulting image back to 8-bit or 16-bit color space for display on your screen or to print it. The result is really stunning as we can show at left, the software showing in a separate windows image variations from pastel to vivid colors.

Photomatix Pro also includes basic editing functions of colors (histogram per channel, saturation, gamma) and luminance (brightness, contrast, smoothing...) completed with a crop and sharpness functions. At last, it supports batch processes.

The Tone mapping function is also available as plug-in for Photoshop CS2 and higher versions for 79$. You will need to load and combine your series of bracketed shots using Photoshop's "Merge to HDR Pro" function first, and then apply the Tone Mapping Plug-In

Photomatix Pro is now at version 4.0 and runs on all MacOS X and Windows 32-bit or 64-bit platforms. It is available in various languages. A trial version that never expires is available.

2011, DxO, 299€

DxO Optics Pro

Dxo Optics Pro is an image processing software supporting RAW files and linked to a database of lenses that you can updated from Internet. In fact, DxO is able to detects in the RAW data which camera and lens were used to take the picture and if needed to download the specifications to fix the defaults typical to that optical combination.

DxO is both a retouching and a corrective tool, although this second feature is the most developed.

Indeed, DxO comes with an impressive serie of functions to rectify most optical aberrations from those typical to fisheye or wide-angle lenses, to distorsion, vignetting, chromatism, high-lights reducer, and other light-related defaults.

Another very useful function is the parallel; instead of rotating a plan to level it at some occasions it is preferable to distort the image. DxO allows to manually adjust lens distortion by tracing two separate lines in the image.

Among tools applying the latest technologies, DxO provides a HDR-like tool and manages High ISO in reducing the electronic noise. It includes a technology à la "U Point" named multipoint color balance (MPCB) to change colors and luminosity of a more or less extended and fuzzy area, it includes a dust removal tool, a curve editing, and is also able to add artistic effects.

Better than a preview, DxO includes a dual image mode to display the image changes before and after processing.

DxO Optics Pro can export files to Adobe Lightroom and other graphic editors.

DxO has the look and feel and contents of professional tools. Sole minus point, if it it excellent to correct optical defaults among othere things, as retouching tool it is not as complete as Photoshop or some of its competitors able of selecting editing.

DxO Optics Pro 6.5 runs on all MacOS X and Windows 32-bit or 64-bit platforms. It is available in various languages in version Standard or Elite.

1995-2011, Phase One, 299€

Capture One Pro

Capture One Pro is an image processing software supporting RAW images, including many DSLRs and digital backs.

The new version adds new tools. Among them, it includes a Focus Tool and Focus Mask to instantly assess and make selections from the focused area in images. It also includes a new Skin Tone enhancer. You can also add vignetting to images, adjust individual color channels and edit an expanded set of metadata fields.

Capture One includes a database of lenses (presets) to perform corrections depending on the lens used, a HDR and perspective correctors, local adjustements of contrast and luminosity, layer based adjustments and multi-colour sliders for controlling the tonal blend of a monochrome conversion.

Using a slow or guenine graphic card, the application can display an "OpenCL initialization failed" error at start. Then the application hangs. In this case you need to run the application in "XP SP3" compatibility mode (via a right-clic on the shortcut or on the exe file) and select in the application Preferences "Use OpenCL = Never". Then the programs will work properly. You will find more information on the developer forum.

Now at version 6.2, Capture One runs on all MacOS X and Windows platforms. It is available in various languages, in version Express (Lite) or Pro.

Nikon Capture NX

Capture NX combines powerful RAW image processing software and a file management. The RAW editing features are Nikon NEF specific, but there are a number of other editing controls for JPEG and TIFF files.

Capture NX 2 looks similar to the previous version, but there are useful changes : you can configure and save custom workspaces, have a dual monitor support with the additional space for your image on one display and the various palettes on the other. It also integrates a browser to find images as well as apply ratings and labels. It adds a Favorites panel to the folders tab to help with accessing the files you work with most frequently. The Metadata tab is available to assign more info if you wish, including keywords, copyright notice, and contact information.

Speed improvements are also obvious with the program keeping up with most editing tasks. Batch processing is welcome but a bit slow, even running on the most recent and faster computers (the processing of hundreds of images can last several days).

About processing tools, in addition to the Color Control Point method of selection in the previous version, there are Select Control Points using U Point technology. When selected, you can drag out a slider to set the radius that will be affected by the selection. You can also set the opacity of the selection, and whether to view a combination of the selection and the original image, or just a mask view that is very useful to verify what you've selected. For more localized control, the Selection Brush lets you paint your selection, after which you have all of the same adjustment options. There is also an Auto Retouch Brush (bandaid icon) that works extremely well with a variety of clean-up tasks. This tool is similar to the Healing tool in Photoshop but works easier and faster.

For NEF files, there are Picture Control settings and utility to create your own control settings, including non-destructive editing capabilities. The new version includes Highlight and Shadow Protection, controls that help to recover details in either the shadow or highlight range (like do Lightroom or Camera Raw). Used with a NEF file, the Highlight Protection control can recover even more information than possible with a TIFF or JPG file.

Capture NX 2 includes filters, a full set of effects (similar to the ones available in Photoshop) and supports plug-ins like Color Efex from Nik Software. Note that all adjustments and filters are listed in the Edit List (like the Photoshop History) that you can change or disable or delete at will.

For output, Capture NX 2 has some powerful options. It fully supports color management and soft proofing mode (to look how your image will look on paper). See demos on Nikon website.

Nikon Capture NX2 works on MacOS X and all Windows 32-bit and 64-bit platforms and is available in various languages.

Freeware

AUTOSTITCH

As its name suggests, it is an automatic image stitching, in other words an application able to create a panorama from individual images.

Developed by Matthew Brown from the University of British Columbia, Autostitch does not require any tutorial. At first run, check the Edit, Options menu, in particular the output file size (e.g. 4000x1500 pixels), the JPEG quality (e.g. 100%), and the possible matching options (pixel min. dimension, scale, number of iterations, etc).

Then select at least two images to assemble via File, Open and the stitching will start. The algorithm will align selected images and improve its rendering to display a final image free of joins and other artifacts. Depending on the image resolution the assembly and rendering lasts between a few seconds and some minutes. The result is really stunning as you can see at left on this panorama of Barcelona that I took.

Now at version 2.2, Autostitch runs on all Windows 32 or 64-bit platforms. It is free for non-commercial use.

VIVEZA

Viveza is an image retouching tool very powerful and very easy to use. Contrary to classic IP software often complex to use and that require time to be mastered, thanks to new technologies Viveza can be mastered in a few minutes.

Viveza takes advantages of the U Point technology that has already been incorporated in the famous Nikon Capture NX. The U point allows to a novice designer to globally improve the colors, brightness and quality of any image or one of its details thanks to the combination of elementary functions gathered in global tools.

Using one or several U Points and selecting the radius of the affected area, in a few seconds you can see your image saturation and level of details improved. A must if you need to regularly modify colors of your images, including in color infrared imaging.

Now at version 2, Viveza runs on Mac OS X and Windows 32 or 64-bit platforms. It is available in various languages as plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Apple Aperture.

Note that the Lightoom plug-in is not integrated in the Raw workflow but remains as a standalone and external tool. You will find video tutorials on the developer website. A trial version is also available.

If the street price is about $200 plus delivery, you can download a full version for only $60 from Supreme-sales. It works fine as long as you follow the instructions.

Adobe Photoshop

This famous program born in 1990 is a high added value image processing software that also reaches a very high price. Considered as a leading product in its category, it is used by all serious photographers and publishers. Each year this imaging program win several awards !

Since version 8, Photoshop displays a trailing "CS" acronym, standing for "Creative Suites".

Indeed, since 2003 Photoshop CS and new releases integrate a complete suite of products to create and edit images or for designing and authoring a web site. Think about something artistic and graphical, it can do it ! Any kind of special effect can be created once you master the program. Channel separation, like LRGB composites or CMYK separation for offset publishing count among its skills.

Among all advantages of Photoshop, it has the ability to manipulate layers, masks, contact sheets and blue prints, to merge them, separate images or align them with accuracy to enhance faint details or suppress artifacts.

The main screen displays on top a menu and an option bar (which parameters adapt dynamically according to your selection), a toolbox at left (including tools like selector, lasso, magic wand, paint bucker, eraser, brush, blur, clone, move, text, colors, etc, themselves often sudivided in several tools), and palettes at right (last actions, layers, colors, styles, masks, etc). In-between comes the image window. Most tools are associated to a shortcut key (lasso with L-key, etc)

Photoshop comes with numbers of filters and effects, including artistical and video ones. It is even able to customize tools and their effects in mixing several items together. You can easily alter your image and its colors, stretch your perspective, make transparencies, add or suppress an external light, add a lens glare effect, use a gaussian or smart blur tools, and much more.

With some addins, Photoshop is able to design interactive JavaScript rollover effects, manage image slicing and animations for web publishing purposes.

Photoshop exports in Pantone format and save in various formats like PSD, BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, including various compression levels of GIF, and many other formats. It can also use a compression algorithm compatible with a web publication that preserves the quality instead of be focused on the compression level.

Here is for short how improved Photoshop. Version 1 was released in February 1990 for MacOS. It supported Colormatch colors from Pantone. Two years later, version 2.5 was adapted to Windows (November 1992).

Version 3 (Sept 1994 for Apple and Nov 1994 for Windows) added tab palettes.

Version 4 (Nov 1996) added adjustable layers and editable type rather than rasterized.

Version 5 (May 1998) added Color management and a reduced color space named sRGB. This color space didn't please users and version 5.5 (Feb 1999) added the Adobe RGB (1998) gamut aka SMTPE-240M, a TV standard much more extended. This version also included the Extract feature.

Version 6 (Sep 2000) added the "liquify" filter and color management (support for ICC profiles).

Version 7 (April 2002) added full vectorial text and healing brush.

Version CS or version 8 (Oct 2003), code name "Dark Matter" added a "lens blur" filter, real-time histogram, commands like shadow/highlight and match colour, and last but not least the Hight-Dynamic Range, HDR.

Version CS2 was released in 2005. Among other things it supported tens of plug-ins to name Camera Raw (released in 2003) to process raw pictures from compact cameras and DSLR (2d image from top), "Viveza" from Nik Software that takes advantage of "U-Point" technology, "Universe Image Creator" from Diard Software and more recently (2007) "Tone mapping" from HDRSoft, among many others tools.

Version CS3 and CS3 Extended were released in 2007. It supported image analysis, 3-D and motion.

Version CS5 aka PS 12 (Standard or Extended) was released in 2010.

Today at version CS 5.1, PS includes a "content-aware" functionality; even if it is perfectible, its allows to remove an object from the image and to reconstruct the background in only one mouse-clic. The 3D functions have also been improved.

Adobe Photoshop runs on all MacOS and Windows platforms. For the casual amateur a lighter version called Photoshop Elements is available for 80 €.

If the street price of PS is about $999 or 940 € plus delivery, you can download a full version for only $145 from Supreme-sales. It works fine as long as you follow the instructions.

Due to its many tools, Photoshop is not easy to master and requires some months of practice. However, many books, DVDs and tutorials are dedicated to this bestseller. Any large bookshop has also a shelf dedicated to Photoshop.

For beginners, I recommend the "Teach Yourself Visually" collection from Wiley (the 310 pages Photoshop book costs $30, £24 or 42 €) and old versions can be found at 1$. Their collection is based on image, 4-color dumpscreens rather than long explanations. It is probably one of the fastest and easier way to learn Photoshop. Then you can buy online tutorials dedicated to specific actions. Adobe Photoshop CD provides three of them from factory.

Freeware or registered

No charge, $299, $999

Terragen

Today this term is became a byword to describe scenery and rendering software.

And de facto, Terragen is one of the first application to explore this field in a so complete way and practically without limitations. It is a remarquable tool quite easy to use that permit to each of us to create photorealistic landscapes.

Terragen is a very sophisticated scenery and rendering program able to create photorealistic landscapes. Created by Matt P.Fairclough, it is free of charge for any non-commercial use.

There are two versions of Terragen, version Classique 0.9.43, and Terragen 2 Technology Preview.

Here are specifications of the product :

- surface rendering

- atmosphere rendering

- clouds rendering including 3D volumes

- water rendering

- sun and light

- screen resolution

- camera and target position

- boolean combination of two reliefs

- 3D rendering

- scripting

- import, export, plug-ins management, and more.

In order to benefit of all anti-aliasing options and get the best image quality, I recommend you to buy the registered version of Terragen. Not only in this way you encourage Matt P.Fairclough to improve its product but this version allows you to create larger images too.

Terragen 2 adds more realistic vegetation and a more complex clouds texture as well as new tools like a more powerful relief editor, a lens flare effect, new imports, etc.

TG2 having been reprogrammed from scratch, this version requires 1 GB RAM minimum but will be more at ease using a performing system and much memory (~3 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM and 256 MB VRAM).

In both cases, Terragen can hardly appeals your computer, mainly the CPU when you create complex landscapes with shadows, water, etc. See this article that I wrote about this subject and this gallery.

Note that since end 2006 there is no new development for the Classic version 0.9.43. Only TG2 know new developments. It is declined in 3 products including a free version.

Terragen Classic 0.9.43 runs on all Mac OS 9, X and all Windows 32 or 64-bits platforms.

TG2 runs on all Mac OS X and on Windows XP 32 or 64-bits platforms and higher.

Bibble Labs, $200

Bibble

Bibble is an image editor including RAW support for many of the newest compacts and DSLR's.

Among the new tools available in version 5, there is a Click Black / Gray / White tool to quickly set curve points based on image content, to neutralize and darken shadows or to set the output white point. Its strongest feature is the selecting editing.

This release also includes the free version of Andrea, the improved AndyPRO, the first film simulator available in Bibble 4, and contains all of the simulations from AndyPRO.

At last, the color reproduction quality for several current cameras have been improved, and this new version also adds 13 newly calibrated lenses and corrects some bugs.

Plus side, Bibble includes a database of lenses and requires hardware ressources lower than many other applications in its class.

Minus side, the trial version runs only 2 weeks, not long enough to appreciate the application and to compare its performances with its competitors. It runs also very slowly compared to all other graphic editors I have tested.

Bibble 5.2 Pro is available for MaxOS X, Windows 32-bit or 64-bit and Linux platforms. It is available in version Lite or Pro.

Mirametrics, $399

MIRA AP

In my humble opinion this is the big brother of Buil's QMiPS2. Its tools are powerful and numerous, to list a few : blinking and animation over 40 frames per second, pseudocolor palette, linear to gamma power transfer functions, astrometric calibration, aperture photometry, data analysis including histogram of pixels and radial brightness profile, histogram plots, artifact repair... A few among hundreds of commands accessible in a few keystrokes.

Many arithmetic and electronic frames operations are provided as special as blend image, change sign, square root, subtraction of the dark frame or bias signature. Geometric transformation have not been forgotten as high-pass filters. Optionally a Maximum Entropy module with or without PSF can be added to deconvolve images and increase their spatial resolution.

On the other side, low-pass filters can be used to remove isolated bad pixels or smoothing both in weight and height. You can even create your own filter kernels or special filters as Rotational Gradient suited to reveal details in radial structure objects such as comets, block average and sum for software "binning".

MIRA provides plug-ins interfaces to open alien files formats, math plugs-ins to process images and make measurements and a script language with batch mode. Its capabilities can be extended to support spectroscopy, 3D graphics. You can also create your own plug-ins writting Visual C++ routines.

At last it is able to acquire SBIG, Celestron Pixcel and Lynxx CCD images through its ACCI module which incorporates a tag to help you to find the best focus using the radial profile method. It read and saves in FITS, TIFF, JPEG and BMP formats of any size, from 8 to 64 bit, including 24-bit color and can read ASCII text and binary files.

Mira also exists in version Pro (more features) and AL (for students).

Now at version 7, MIRA AP runs on all MacOS X, Windows 32-bit and 64-bit, and Linux platforms. A must for its remarkable performances.

Cyanogen Productions Inc. $390 ($299 for MaxIm DL)

MaxIm DL/CCD

Due to its powerful Maximum Entropy Deconvolution function (MaxEnt) and its ability to driver most of CCD cameras, MaxIm DL/CCD became a product acclaimed by all astrophotographers working with digital images.

MaxIm DL/CCD includes "MaxEnt", a sophisticated tool able to enhance features lost in blurry images. This tool comes with an automatic Point-Spread-Function (PSF) to extract star image, Gaussian or Exponential curve, noise extraction from models and a wizard to make the tool more easy to use.

MaxIm DL/CCD supplies also standard imaging tools to alter pictures both in geometry and colors (even in false color), it can align pictures for a later B/W or color combination (including LCMY) or extraction, resize with interpolation, remove bad pixels or stretch the image. You can also easily postprocessed your images with the advanced imaging filters like FFT, Kernel, High and Low pass, unsharp mask, all functions including a preview window.

This marvellous software is completed with MaxImDL/CCD Camera Control able to driver with accuracy most CCD cameras and filter wheels (AP, Astrovid, Celestron, Meade, HiSIS, SBIG, webcam, etc). You set the exposure, focus, binning, color sequence (if need) and control the autoguider (even asking it to take some pictures) through a simple menu. Once recorded, MaxIm DL/CCD includes a CCD image Calibrator supporting bias, dark and flat field frames for preprocessing. All these functions make of MaxIm DL/CCD a product I warmly recommend to all CCD users.

For the beginner, MaxIm DL/CCD comes with a powerful on-line help with examples (including 70% of the manual) and a detailed 250 pages manual.

MaxIM DL/CCD can read RAW images recorded by DSLRs or CCD cameras, and supports in reading and saving 32-bit FITS, 16-bit TIFF, SBIG, PC-Lynxx, PNG, BMP and JPEG formats.

Now at version 5, MaxIm DL runs on all Windows platforms. No update nor upgrade is required for Windows XP, Vista, or Seven.

ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator

ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator is an image processing software supporting only FITS and PDS formats and saving only in TIFF format. It uses is thus limited for amateurs and mainly reserved to those taking LRGB images.

FITS is the raw image standard used by all professional observatories like ESO VLT, CFHT, NRAO, AAT, space telescopes like Hubble (HST), Spitzer, XMM, and planetary probes like Cassini–Huygens or MRO without to forget your personal FITS images recorded with your CCD camera.

FITS Liberator includes a faster and more streamlined workflow than the previous version. The CPU-intensive calculations have been optimised, allowing time savings of up to 35%. For large images the savings in efficiency are even more pronounced, also thanks to a delayed application of stretch functions.

To sustain the future development of the software the entire source code -about 30000 lines of code - is being released as open source, and anyone wishing to contribute to future versions of the programme may do so.

FITS Liberator is now at version 3 and works on MacOS X and all Windows 32-bit and 64-bit platforms.

The program is 5 MB in size and installs in a few seconds. Note that for a same resolution, a FITS image is usually 3 to 4 times larger than a RAW image recorded by an DSLR.

You will find FITS images on the CFHT Science Data Archive. Here is a sample FITS image of M57 (2.3 MB).

Note that FITS is most of time not supported by amateur software, not even by Photoshop CS and any viewer, excepted in adding them a plugin. So, if you are searching for a software supporting FITS format, for viewing or editing, you will find additional tools and converters on the GSFC-NASA website. FITS format is also supported by MaxIm DL, MIRA and IRIS among others.

Digital Light & Color, $89

Picture Window Pro

This program is suited for both pure photography and astrophotography processing. A context-sensitive help is always available as well as an electronic manual in Adobe Acrobat format.

This particularly interesting application is able to load multiples files doing a multi-selection. It includes basic image editing functions to alter images (geometry, color or luminance) but also more powerful tools like perspective correction, photomontage with scaling and warping.

Beside standard arithmetical functions there are some dedicated to pure photography. Various retouching tools for example allow you to work with scratched negatives or prints. You can paint and clone features to remove imperfection, lighten or darken selected areas of an image. A color correction transformation adjusts skin tones in a portrait without altering the others colors in the image, tint transformation colorises B/W images, Red Eye tool lets you suppress the red pupil when a flash is used, etc.

The Mask dialog box contains a Color Similarity tool able to erase undesirable features by dragging an input color or range of colors over another region of the image. The Light Falloff transformation allows you to compensate light for the tendency of some lenses to produce unbalanced image. The Color gradients fades smoothly one color in another. The lasso tool and similar masks allow you to suppress undesirable backgrounds. At last like in many similar products some special effects tools are available including vignetting, distorting, embossing, edge enhancement, spiral, etc.

For astrophotography and post-processing purposes, other functions like an image blinking comparator is provided to find moving or new objects, a Stereo transformation prepares pairs of stereo photographs and, last but not least you can create composite by accurately registering and aligning all images so their data be combined pixel by pixel to create a high resolution B/W or RGB composite. This tool includes a preview mode and various filters to lighten, darken or add, blend, etc your composite.

Compared to the previous releases 2.5, version 3.x support color management too, a color match output, a new smart brush mode, new support for displaying and editing file comments added by digital cameras, a web slide show and new transformation tools (rotation during cropping, fan effect, shadowed text and more).

Picture Window Pro supports 16-bit B/W and 48-bit color images and can exchange data in numbers of formats including BMP, FITS, GIF, JPEG, RLE, TIFF with full Photo CD support and TWAIN-compatible scanners.

This new release is sold with a discount on IT8 target and software, a complete color calibration bundle for scanners, previously used in the graphic art industry.

Now at version 3.5, Picture Windows Pro runs on all 32-bit Windows platforms. A 24-bit display adapter is highly recommended.

1999-2010, Christian Buil

Freeware

IRIS

"Here is" a small but excessively powerful tool easy to use to enhance and process your digital astronomical images.

Created by the french CCD expert Christian Buil from CNES, this program needs no more than 2 MB on disk, but includes all major functions you need to post-process your pictures.

IRIS supports RAW images from various recent DSLRs as well 48-bit FITS and PIC formats. It also imports BMP, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF images. Images can be saved in RAW Photoshop, TIFF and PNG formats.

IRIS provides rare "all-in-one" features like color or B/W isophotes mapping, 3d display or ramp (tricolor).

It supplies a dynamic threshold, some geometry alterations plus usual filters and last but not least an unsharp mask.

It can also be connected to external databases on CD-ROM as GSC, TYCHO-2, USNO-A, QMiPS32 or MicroCat.

At last IRIS has capabilities to manage astrometry and photometry datas and includes a built-in module to drive a LX200 mount (guide, center, find and slew) or a webcam throug a COM port.

Now at version 5.59, IRIS only runs on Windows platforms. A complete tutorial is available on Christian Buil's website.

1998-2000, Christian Buil

Freeware

QMiPS32

This application was created by the french experts Christian Buil in collaboration with Alain Klotz and Eric Thouvenot, known for their know-how in the field of CCD Astronomy. It is delivered with the HiSIS CCD camera.

Running under DOS protected mode, it only requires a 80386 or higher processor and 16 MB RAM. This product hid however a 32 bit program including all pre-processing operations and a professional looking GUI. Among its most astonishing commands there are photometric analysis, planetary cartography, polarimetric analysis, wavelets analysis, astrometry when connected to an external CD-ROM like the Guide Star Catalog, blink comparison for moving or new objects seraches like supernovae, asteroids or comets.

Advanced CCD users will find its numerous advanced filters very useful. There are for example the classical arithmetical functions like add, substract, average (median sum), functions like logarithmic scaling and unsharp masking but also the famous Maximum Entropy or Lucy-Richardson restore functions and a Radial Gradient to enhance the sharpness and details of your pre-processed images. This program can also read the Buil-Thouvenot CD-ROM Atlas (BT-Atlas) and import 8 or 16 bits FITS, SBIG, BMP, TIFF and ASCII format, plus a convenient raw format.

QMiPS32 runs on 80486 processors and higher with at least 8 MB RAM. I warmly recommend it.

CCDSoFT France

CCDPro

This program is quite similar to Picture Window Pro and comes with a very convenient help menu as well a computer status.

Its main advantage is to use dynamic tools or toggle which display in real-time the effects of an alteration, the number of pixels replaced, etc. It includes standard alteration functions on images geometry or color saturation and provides a small pixels editor. Layers can also be sent back or in the foreground and a text can be add to your images.

Some pre-processing features like Dark & Frame use offset, dark frame and flat field images to substrat all errors when using a CCD camera. Of course this option is a time-processor hungry even of fast Pentium III systems. It is completed with a Kill Warm and Cool pixels function.

Written by imaging experts, there is a specific Operations menu which includes filtering functions like Convolution and Out-Range and the famous Maximum Entropy and Lucy-Richardson restore algorithms, both using the PSF to compute the stars profile.

Last but not least, CCDPro allows you to split a color picture in its RGB components or to create color composites from accurately aligned B/W layers, to modify the contrast, brillance, the size or even the X,Y shift of each of your layers.

Minus sides, by definition the RGB split cannot extract the luminance channel although the Multi-Layers submenu can create a LRGB picture. The zoom is limited to a range 8:1-1:8 and there is no gamma corrector excepted by creating a mask. The pixel editor replaces only pixels by averaging its neighbors values and 16 colors mode is not supported.

But CCDPro supports 8 bit/pixel palletized (256 colors) and 24 bit/pixel (true color) BMP formats. It saves in ST7, FITS, BMP or JPG format. Black & White images are exported using a 256 levels gray palette and 8 bits/pixel and color images are exported using 24 bits/pixel.

Now at version 1.1, CCDPro is available for most Windows 16 or 32-bit platforms.

(c) Astroarts, 1999

StellaImage

By chance, surfing japanese websites, I found this program. This is a relatively complete product with colorful icons including all basic image processing of cooled CCD images (dark-frame and flat-field correction, level adjustement). A special digital develpment function allows you to show natural tone in CCD images by sharpening edges according to the brightness in the image. This tool emphases details in images by using an hyperbolic function to convert the gamma characteristic.

The image processing functions ensure various adjustments that complete standards alteration functions (resize, shift, rotate, adjuste tone curves of B/W or RGB channels, alter brightness and contrast).

There are some filters like a quite simple unsharp mask, bluring and sharpening, enhancing edges and masking (color emphasis). StellaImage can also combines images to reduce the noise, adjust the input pixels to darken or highlight areas and combine RGB or LRGB images to create color composites. To interpret a contrast, an histogram of image tones is available as well as a palette to create a four false colors image.

Not all functions display a preview and the undo is hidden in the pull-down menu. StellaImage can directly control Twain scanner and read normal photographs. Now at version 2, StellaImage is provided without support and runs on all Windows 32-bit platforms.

Take a look at my Digital Darkroom menu for more detail about image processing

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