Review of Imaging software

Freeware or registered

Developed by Matt Fairclough, today this application 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. It is a remarquable tool quite easy to use that permit to each of us to create photorealistic landscapes, static or animated.

Thanks to its intuitive menuing, Terragen allows you to create your first landscape in less than one hour. However, its mastering requires much patience and I am not sure that its gurus master it totally, being given that its tens of parameters have reciprocal effects hard to foresee.

The main window is empty and displays seven controls in the upper left corner : Rendering, Landscape, Water, Cloudscape, Atmosphere, Lighting Conditions and Render Image.

To get the best realism on landscapes, you must use surface maps or layers. For example, a forest is made of trees of different colors. Each color can be associated to a layer, each being particular to a type of tree. Among the additional controls name the roughness, the distribution, the fractal noise, and optionally the slope of the surface and the fuzzy aspect at the limit of two layers. However, up to now objects have no height, excepted a thickness. You can work a similar way to generate a mountain with green grass in the valley, pines on slopes, brown soil and gray rocks near the top and snow more or least white and soft on top. You can also generate a lagoon panorama, a desert or any other landscape passing through your mind or almost.

Lighting conditions and atmospheric parameters as the amount of light, its color, the height of the Sun over the horizon, the amount of haze, the thickness of the atmosphere, its density, the fact that clouds cast or not shadows, etc are some among some 100 parameters that you can can set. Find the right settings is thus a task very time consuming. However, at least 50% of default settings are compatible with most compositions.

Terragen reads and imports external altimetric files (e.g. topographic data of Mars, Lansat data, etc). Some of these databases are accessible free of charge via Internet. Using the Firmament plugin, Terragen also accepts to import BMP pictures that will be converted in 3D object based on black and white values. You can edit any landscape to modify for example the height of a mountain or the depth of the sea. At last, you can change the horizon curvature by changing the planet radius (in the Landscape window). However, the layers will not always follow the curvature. In this case you have to extend the terrain and the cloudscape sizes.

Possibilities offered by Terragen depend only on your imagination as the program doesn't include much limitations (you can for example place the cloud layer over the atmosphere with all consequences of this (illogical) setting on the render time...). Although all renderings are superb when all anti-aliasing and smoothing options are enabled, expect you to a lot of postprocessing in a photo editor if you want an excellent result, mainly in you are interested in planetscape or to remove some artifacts when working with very extended landscape (bands can show up in the sky, etc).

Terragen creates bitmap images up to 1280x960 pixels and is able to create animations (by default or using Terranim plugin) based on a custom 3D trajectory through the landscape. As any graphical application, it requires a fast computer (a 3-GHz CPU is recommended with 1 GB RAM) but version 0.9.43 runs on a 500 MHz computer with 256 MB RAM, slowly but surely.

You can find help files, tutorials and images created by users on Terragen website and Ashundar Terragen Community, without to forget the Yahoo! Terragen group. See also my Terragen pages for more detail.

Terragen is now available in two versions : version 0.9.43, and version 2 Technology Preview. Both run on all Windows 32-bit and Mac OS platforms. Terragen is a freeware for non-commercial applications, otherwhise you have to register and pay a fee of $99.

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.

MaxEnt in 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.

Now at version 4, MaxIm DL runs on Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000.

Adobe Photoshop

This famous program born in 1990 is a high added value product 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 !

The Adobe Photoshop version CS had to be called version 8 as it is the upgrade to version 7. It integrates 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 its advantages, 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. This program exports in Pantone format and save in various formats like PSD, BMP, JPG, GIF, TIFF, PNG, and many others. It can 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. 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.

Now at version CS3 and CS3 Extended since 2007, Adobe Photoshop supports image analysis, 3-D and motion. It runs on all MacOS and Windows 32-bit platforms. For the casual amateur a lighter version called Photoshop Elements 3.0 is available for less than $100.

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 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 €). 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.

AXIOM Research, $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 and can read ASCII text and binary files.

Now at version 6, MIRA AP is a 32-bit application running under Windows 95, 98 or NT. A 24-bit display adapter is highly recommended as it supports images up to 32-bit depth and 24-bit color (16 millions colors). A must for its remarkable performances.

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.

1999-2004, Christian Buil

Freeware

IRIS

"Here is" a small but powerful tool easy to use to enhance your digital 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 astronomical pictures.

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

Plus side 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, 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 4.17, IRIS can only load or save TIFS, BMP and PIC format and runs on 32-bit OS like Windows 95, 98 or NT. A 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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