ds.johnston

Ok great, just tested out and now I am able to achieve creating a mask for my stars. Thank you for working through that with me. Is there not a feature whereby stars can be selected and masked automatically? I can see Affinity Photo are trying to be the go to software for astrophotography processing, and creating star masks is one of the most common and crucial parts of processing astro images.

p.s I was also unable to download the mov. file you attached to this topic.

Here is the screenshot of the "pixel selection". The nebula is still there when it wasn't selected. The background is also still being picked up (but in a semi transparent kind of way).

Affinity Photo 2022-04-08 15-03-55.mp4 Here is a screen recording where I have simply selected and then copied and paste my selection.

Affinity Photo 2022-04-08 14-52-49.mp4 I have done the screen recording for you. I can assure you that all layers are 100% opacity - there is no transparency in any of the layers. I know the issue has nothing to do with the mask because I get the same problem even I simply copy and paste my selection. Even when I copy and paste it doesn't just copy my selection, it also copies a degree of transparency of the whole image.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did try this is a new document entirely and whilst the result is better, my selections are still picking up most of the image rather than what I am trying to target (the stars only - I didn't select the nebula but for some reason it is still being picked up). Here's my result following your suggestion:

CaliNeb_EDIT_13.03.22 - Copy.afphoto

Sadly, the file won't upload. It's 458mb and I can't upload it. Is there another way to get the file to you?

Not sure you have understood me correctly as I am only talking about the selection tool. In the past I used this tool to select only the stars in my image. Since the recent update the "select sampled color" tool now selects the entirely image in some weird partial transparent way. The option I used for the "select sampled color" tool is "Intensity". My work flow is exactly the same as this youtube video (this is the video where I learnt the technique from): This now does not work in Affinity photo as the selections are including the entire image. My image is 100% and the layer is rasterised. I have tried doing everything in new documents, in both 16bit and 32bit. I have attached my project for you to see if you can replicate the problem using the workflow I used (taken from the youtube video). I would upload my project but it's too large to upload. When selecting stars, the purpose is to preserve the quality of the stars only.

p.s this is specifically a problem when using any of the options with the "Select Sampled Colour" function

Hello, Have been using Affinity Photo for a while now for astrophotography. I used to be able to select and mask stars from my images so I could edit them accordingly without touching the rest of the image. Now when I select stars, the selection always takes a semi transparent selection of the whole image plus what I have selected. This means I can no longer edit my selected areas (or use the mask tool) without editing the whole image at once. I can't even cut and paste any more as the selection won't stick to what I specifically select any more. Screen shot attached. How do I fix this? I am pretty sure this is a bug. Image 1 shows my selection (the stars) Image 2 shows that no matter what I do, the whole image is selected in a semi transparent way PLUS my intended selection (the stars). Why is this happening and how can it be fixed?

Hi Kirk, I'm using Canon DSLR's which only have one option for shooting raw files so I don't believe I am shooting compressed raw - I don't even know what that is tbh

Hi James, thank you for your thorough and thoughtful response. I hope you understand that I am making these criticisms out of wanting this software to do well. I think this has the potential to be game changing software for astrophotography. I completely understand that you want to create videos that are easy to follow, and of course no one wants to sit there watching the stack progress. However, I do think expectations should be set in regards to the Astrophotography Stacking feature. I think setting the realistic expectations about the speed of the stacking progress (and other YouTuber tutorial videos are often clear about how long these things can take) is fair and informative for potential customers. Even stating that this is a new feature that is constantly being improved as part of your mission to simplify the image processing process for astrophotographers, would indeed go down much better than expecting the stacking process to happen as quickly as it does in your videos, only then to buy it and find out this is not the case. Your tutorial videos are excellent btw. Easy to follow and very clear on instructions. I mainly use my stock Canon M6 mark II which is a 32.5mp mirrorless using the new CR3 Raw format. I do also own an astromodified Canon 650D so I can check how the software compares when stacking either CR2 or CR3. Have CR3 Raw files been tested? I will try stacking fewer frames and report back. I'm have no doubt Affinity will continue to improve, and I appreciate your response in the forums. If there is any further advice you can give on speed up the stacking progress I will certainly try it out.

Hello, I updated Affinity Photo today from 1.9 to 1.9.1 With 1.9 the Astrophotography Stack feature just crashes and didn't work at all. With 1.9.1 the Astrophotography Stack feature is incredibly slow. I have taken a screenshot of the status bar after 30mins. I'm only stacking a small number of frames consisting of: Lights frames = 22 x 4min @ ISO500 Darks = 17, Bias = 50, Flats = 50. All frames are CR3 Raw files. My laptop is an i7 quadcore so it's not exactly slow. My complaint is that your YouTube videos show the Astrophotography Stack feature completing the processing in seconds. Can you address why you have made advertising videos showing this feature working so quickly when the reality is extremely different? This seems really disingenuous and is false advertising. If you're going to sell a product with a feature like this then it should definitely outperform free products such as Deep Sky Stacker, which can complete the stacking process much quicker (never had any problems with Deep Sky Stacker). I would really appreciated hearing from an Affinity developer on this issue.

Hello, I updated Affinity Photo today from 1.9 to 1.9.1 With 1.9 the Astrophotography Stack feature just crashes and didn't work at all. With 1.9.1 the Astrophotography Stack feature is incredibly slow. I have taken a screenshot of the status bar after 30mins. I'm only stacking a small number of frames consisting of: Lights frames = 22 x 4min @ ISO500 Darks = 17, Bias = 50, Flats = 50. All frames are CR3 Raw files. My laptop is an i7 quadcore so it's not exactly slow. My complaint is that your YouTube videos show the Astrophotography Stack feature completing the processing in seconds. Can you address why you have made advertising videos showing this feature working so quickly when the reality is extremely different? This seems really disingenuous and is false advertising. If you're going to sell a product with a feature like this then it should definitely outperform free products such as Deep Sky Stacker, which can complete the stacking process much quicker. I would really appreciated hearing from an Affinity developer on this issue.

Hi James, thanks for your reply. Happy to share details. To clarify, I haven't tried switching off the Bad Pixel Tool Map feature. I hadn't even touched this when it crashed the first time. I pressed that button during another go and the result was the same. When I hit the stack button, a progress bar for Detect Bad Pixel comes up and at this point everything crashes. I can't even get a crash report as I either have to end the programme via Task Manager or the whole computer freezes (can't even access task manager at that point) so I have to turn it off and restart. After a few attempts, so far the stacking feature cannot get beyond Detect Bad Pixels. As for the data I'm using: Light frames = 22 × 4min @ ISO500 Darks = 17 Flats = 50 Bias = 50 Frames were taken with a Canon M6 mark II which creates CR3 raw files. So we're talking a short imaging sessions worth of data, which I chose to use just so I could practice with the new software and follow your tutorials. I have already removed the bad frames so those 22 light frames are my chosen frames (I often do this before stacking as you're right - why waste time and computer power on bad frames). Having already stacked this data in Deep Sky Stacker (sigma clipping), I have an idea how long it can take but your videos (which are excellent btw) do suggest that the stacking feature will take a very short time to complete - it would have been nice to have known what we should have realistically expected from this feature and how long it usually takes (I have read other posts where users are leaving on their computers overnight to complete this process - this just seems a bit ridiculous to me so I'm hoping that the software doesn't require that amount of time to stack as I've never experienced that with Deep Sky Stacker). I am genuinely excited for this product as the idea of an all in one stacking and processing programme sounds excellent so I'm happy to work to get this resolved.

Thanks, I think I'm just really disappointed as I purchased this software after seeing these new features in Affinity's YouTube videos. The Astrophotography Stack was demonstrated to work so quickly, literally within seconds. I get that there are always bugs but that one felt like false advertising and disingenuous. Anyway, as for fixing the problem. I never turned on the hardware acceleration so that's not the problem. I also tried limiting the RAM usage as this has been suggested by other users, but that didn't work either.

Hello, I recently purchased your software as all the videos showed how well it works for astrophotography. I was particularly impressed with how fast your stacking process was in your videos. However, each time I use your Astrophotography Stacking process, once I hit stack the whole programme just crashes. I left the programme alone for over an hour. Not even Deep Sky Stacker takes that long. This is deeply disappointing and contrasting to what your videos demonstrate. My laptop has a i7 quad core processor too so it's not exactly slow or lacking power. Please can you provide me with support on this issue? I have attached a screenshot here (using my phone as I can't grab a screenshot due to your programme crashing every time).