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Image Stacking and Narrowband Processing in Affinity Photo

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In this tutorial, Nik shows us how to use Affinity Photo for image stacking and the production of SHO narrowband images.

For this tutorial, we will be using a One-Click Observation of the Rosette Nebula obtained with CHI-4 telescope.
SPECIFICATIONS
Tutor .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Nik Szymanek
Parts .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 1 video
Duration .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 0h 27m
Image type .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Deep Sky Imaging
Difficulty level .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Beginner
Category .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Getting Started
Tier .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Standard
Software used .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Affinity Photo
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PART 1
Affinity Stack and SHO
30
PART 1

Affinity Stack and SHO

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Comments

Hi Georg.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad that it was of use.
Yes, version 2 is available. I had a quick look through it when it first came out and didn't see any dramatic changes in terms of astro processing but will revisit it when time permits. Did you find anything significant?
Cheers,
Nik

One remark - this tutorial is based upon Affinity 1.x - with the release 2.x now, there are some differences as I found out. Do you plan to publish an update for version 2?

I listened to it three times and made notes - because my program is in German and most terms and names are quite different, but with the help of a a large book on Affinity in German, I was able to get through all steps properly. Thank you for you excellent tutorial!

Wonderful video, and very helpful. Wondering if the workflow for LRGB would be similar to this?

Thanks,
Ash

Reply: 4

Hi Ash.
Thanks! Glad it was of use. 👍
The LRGB workflow is pretty similar if you have the Affinity macros.
Check the PDF that came with them and there you'll find the instructions. You'll create a four layer image and from memory they should be labelled L R G B and then click on the LRGB Composition Setup macro. Ensure that you're working with a 32-bit image.
I'll post tutorial on this in the near future.
Cheers,
Nik

Hey Nik,

This worked perfectly well for me. JR astrophotography set of macros that I had purchased during this tutorial in fact helped when I was editing an LRGB. And always working with 32 bit :)

Thanks a lot, and eagerly waiting for your LRGB tutorial. Maybe this time you should choose galaxy clusters or a galaxy instead of a nebula. I feel the flow is entirely different.

Thanks for the Affinity tutorial, Nik. Quite a lot packed into that program.
An item I am somehow missing, is the location of things like Macros, (Mentioned at timecode 14:03) and the Selective Color Menu (accessed at 17:45) prior to their being dragged onto the screen. Is there a "window" that simply doesn't show in the video?
A little niggle: I found myself losing track of your cursor. Maybe a bigger, brighter cursor? I'm guessing you work on a pretty good sized monitor. But in the video, that shrinks your cursor.

Hi Michael.
Thanks for the feedback.
I've posted the location to obtain the macros in an earlier message so hopefully if you scroll down the previous replies you should see the link. If not, let me know and I'll re-post it.
You can access the 'Selective Colour' menu by clicking on this : 'View > Studio > Adjustment'. It'll bring up a list of the available Adjustment tools (Selective Colour is about 2/3rds of the way down the list).
Thanks for the feedback re the cursor. I'd originally used a highlighted cursor for a few of the earlier tutorials but then decided to revert back to the standard view. I'll bear this in mind for future tutorials.
Cheers,
Nik

Hey Nik,

Thanks for this incredibly helpful video, I was really pleased with how much better this workflow worked for me. Is there any chance that a similar video will be made showing your workflow of an LRBG dataset from telescope.live? If so, I'm eager to watch it, and if not, are you able to fill me in on what you do differently for an LRBG workflow in AF? Thanks for any feedback!

Jason

Hi Jason
Thanks for the kind words and feedback on the video! 👍
I will be doing an LRGB video in the near future.
If you used the astronomy macros in Affinity there is also an LRGB setting that really streamlines the creation of LRGB files. It's pretty straightforward to use and there's info on how to apply it in the PDF that comes with the macros.
From memory, you just create a four layer image and name each layer L,R,G and B then hit the button and the macros compiles the image with appropriate scaling for each channel although occasionally the scaling is a little bright. It's much easier to use than the original procedure in Affinity that was preposterously complicated!
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Nik

Please provide more information on the Hubbell Pallet macro - link where to down load it