Anyone try this new automatic stretching scrip?

[Comet Hunter]

I repocess the Wizard with this new script called VeraLux. Thoughts? This may save me from always over cooking my images?

 

[JimFox]

I haven't tried it, though I think I heard of it

I like your example Ed. And I normally do a very basic stretch, but this looks really nice and I think I need to check this out.

 

[Andy Elliott]

Nicely done.
I have been playing about with it. My first impressions are that I like it, but on the images I have tried so far the saturation looks a little overdone. But for a consistent approach to stretching I think this is going to be a game changer. I have been particularly impressed with the stars, it does a great job on the stars from my samyang wide field setup, particularly the 150s exposures. The 30s exposure below was stretched using Seti Astro's 'Statistical Stretch', the 150s using Veralux. Using the Veralux script may mean I can do away with my usual 30s exposures I currently take specifically for the stars.
I think this script was originally written for Siril? So I guess we can expect refinements via updates in PI.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Hi everyone,

I dove into it on my last processed image, and worked with it a lot. After using it on that data, I would say it is going to be another tool in the toolbox for me, but it is not necessarily going to replace all of my other approaches to stretching, at least not immediately. For one thing, having just come out it is still being refined, with 2 versions showing up just in the 4 or 5 days I took to work on my last image. Here are some quick comments about it based on my limited usage so far:

• As Andy says, it produces colorful stars. I think it may be my new most used star stretching technique.
• When used to stretch a frame that has not has stars removed, it seems to under stretch and oversaturate the nebulosity data for my taste anyway.
• Stretching nebulosity data with stars removed can work well, but optimal settings for results I liked were VERY different from the defaults.
• As mentioned in one of the online tutorial/review posts I watched on YouTube, it really could use a previews mode to allow for quicker experimentation with different settings
• I have only so far used it with nebula data not galaxy data. I expect it might be nice for RGB processing of galaxy data, especially OSC based data...
• The latest version I have used as of this writing does not seem to play well with mono data. I expect you could work around this by changing grayscale masters to RGB masters, but in my case I invoked the previous version which had no such constraints.

I will post my results obtained with it hopefully soon...

ML

P.S. - Ed, I do like your results. I dispute your assertion about always 'overcooking' your results though, you frequently have some EXCELLENT results! And I do believe this tool is capable of 'overcooking' things as well with certain settings...

 

[JimFox]

Nicely done.
I have been playing about with it. My first impressions are that I like it, but on the images I have tried so far the saturation looks a little overdone. But for a consistent approach to stretching I think this is going to be a game changer. I have been particularly impressed with the stars, it does a great job on the stars from my samyang wide field setup, particularly the 150s exposures. The 30s exposure below was stretched using Seti Astro's 'Statistical Stretch', the 150s using Veralux. Using the Veralux script may mean I can do away with my usual 30s exposures I currently take specifically for the stars.
I think this script was originally written for Siril? So I guess we can expect refinements via updates in PI.View attachment 85841View attachment 85842

Hey Andy, thanks for showing this images. It does seem to do very well with stars.

 

[JimFox]

Hi everyone,

I dove into it on my last processed image, and worked with it a lot. After using it on that data, I would say it is going to be another tool in the toolbox for me, but it is not necessarily going to replace all of my other approaches to stretching, at least not immediately. For one thing, having just come out it is still being refined, with 2 versions showing up just in the 4 or 5 days I took to work on my last image. Here are some quick comments about it based on my limited usage so far:

• As Andy says, it produces colorful stars. I think it may be my new most used star stretching technique.
• When used to stretch a frame that has not has stars removed, it seems to under stretch and oversaturate the nebulosity data for my taste anyway.
• Stretching nebulosity data with stars removed can work well, but optimal settings for results I liked were VERY different from the defaults.
• As mentioned in one of the online tutorial/review posts I watched on YouTube, it really could use a previews mode to allow for quicker experimentation with different settings
• I have only so far used it with nebula data not galaxy data. I expect it might be nice for RGB processing of galaxy data, especially OSC based data...
• The latest version I have used as of this writing does not seem to play well with mono data. I expect you could work around this by changing grayscale masters to RGB masters, but in my case I invoked the previous version which had no such constraints.

I will post my results obtained with it hopefully soon...

ML

P.S. - Ed, I do like your results. I dispute your assertion about always 'overcooking' your results though, you frequently have some EXCELLENT results! And I do believe this tool is capable of 'overcooking' things as well with certain settings...

Thanks for the detailed answer Mike. I liked reading your thoughts on it.