The other night I posted an image of Cassiopeia that I banged out very quickly in Sequator and The GIMP. Over the last few nights, I have re-run those images through Astro Pixel Processor as a way of getting better acquainted with that tool and its huge amount of features. Once I had my final image, it occurred to me that I was losing the focus of the shot, Cassiopeia, in all of the minor stars that are revealed through astrophotography and stacking. The removal of these unwanted stars is called “star reduction” or “star minimization”.
Star reduction is typically done in Photoshop or The GIMP, but there is a newish tool on the scene, StarNet++, to assist with this very process. I have messed with it a bit in the past, but I had much better results this time. There is still a good deal of work to be done in Photoshop/GIMP afterwards, but it is much less involved thanks to StarNet++. Anyway, you can judge for yourself. The image with the white text is what I posted the other night, and the green text is with this new process.
You must be logged in to post a comment.