Starry Landscape Stacker 4+

Good, but could be great

I'm giving this 4 stars because it is so useful.

1) could do a better job of picking star paths - red dots. I've spent hours picking missed star paths. Maybe provide a threshhold for edge contrast.
2) should stack the ground and the stars
3) should be able to stack low light images that are not stars and ground to remove noise.
4) Has Min and Max and average. Shouuld have a slider to weigh Min and Max when doing average.
5) Does a great job of removing jet trails, but also removes meteor trails.
6) I have to se the temp and Tint for input without a preview?
7) there are only two zoom options Actual Pixels and Fit to Frame - why is this not variable?
8) I don't see a way to save a file in the middle of working on it. After hours of picking stars and carefully outlining the ground, I a) save all optiosn because I don't want to spend hours re-creating the masks and stars b) I am in constant fear of my system crashing or (not likely) the app crashing.
9) I Pick Dots then Find Sky. I do not see any way of going back to pick or erase more dots once I Find Sky without starting all over.

Updated review

So my last review was August 10th and since then the app has had a few updates and it keeps getting better.

There's now the option of doing noise and color noise reduction directly in the app and I've tested it by doing that and then not doing it and doing the noise reduction in photoshop and it looks like the noise correction in SLS is better!

It seems the masking has gotten better too. Most of my shots have trees and it used to be a pain but it does a mighty fine job. I also love how it will automatically reorient images becuase often after I shoot light frames I will set my camera to take 30 dark frames and then pack it up in my bag as I walk back to the car and if the camera turns it will think I'm taking portrait shots. So it's a huge help that I don't have to go in and manually reorient the shots before using the stacker.

Great app!

How can you feather the paint brush when masking? The paint brush is set to the hardest edge possible and that makes masking a very time consuming and tedeous process. I saw in Ian Norman’s tutorial video that his brush was feathered and there is no obvious way to achieve that in the app.
Other than the paint brush feather issue this is a great app and very user friendly! I’ve achieved my best astro shots with the help of this app.

Thank you

Developer Response ,

Thanks for your feedback. I am glad you have had success with it. I am not sure how Ian Norman's tutorial showed a feathered brush. SLS has never had a feathered brush. The edge of the mask has to have a hard edge--feathered alignment just does not work. I am not sure how having a feathered brush makes it easier to make a mask. Perhaps you could contact me directly and we can find a way to make masking easier for you. Launch Starry Landscape Stacker, and under "Help" in the menu bar select "Email Developer".