John Rostron

As you will have noticed. I concur with this.the image I used here was, if you like, the last straw. Do you mean that you use AP HDR Merge to creat a single output image and then apply Nik HDR to that? John

I shall try it and see. John

I recall trying to manually align layers in a Live Stack some time ago and I could not get it to work. It could well be that it now works as you describe. It is easier to align if you just have the one visible layer that is out of alignment. This means that you would need to set all layers but the bottom one to invisible, then make each layer visible in turn. John

I opened the first image, labelling the layer 84, and zoomed in; then for each of the others: I named the layer with a number (85 ...) I selected and copied the layer (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C) I pasted this onto my start image (Ctrl-V), and reduced the opacity to 50% I selected the move tool, then re-positioned the top layer so that the brightest star was superimposed. I then adjusted the opacities to average the layers. (100%/13, 100%/12, .... 100%/2, 100%) John

Following recent posts on Super-Resolution, and Nik HDR, I thought I would try Nik HDR Efex Pro on a single image. I had an image created using PhotoAcute trial on a burst-mode set of images to create super-resolution image. It worked (leaving a watermark), but the image seemed to have lost some detail in the shadows. See image 1, which is a full-resolution, cropped image from the PhotoAcute .dng output, developed and exported as .jpg.. I then applied Nik HDR Efex Pro to it and got this: And, for comparison, I used Affinity New HDR Stack on the single PhotoAcute dng output: The two HDR images are a great improvement on the untreated original showing detail in the shadow area. However the Affinity New HDR Stack took an age to process, at least 30 minutes and maybe longer (I went off and cooked and ate lunch). My previous experience with Affinity New HDR Stack has not had such long times, although the file sizes had been smaller (Super-Resolution enlarges image by 200%). Has anyone else had such a wait? John

I stacked your thirteen images and aligned by hand. Because of the subject matter, it did not take much time at all. I then averaged them by setting the opacities to 1/13, 1/12... and merging the layers. I also increased the contrast in the final image. Works well for this set, but I would guess it would be much more fiddly for 30-40+ images! John

This topic has been too interesting. I find that I have been spending ages doing multiple upsizes (because the batch processor won't behave) and spending ages waiting for the stack to be built. I have also been using the trial version of PhotoAcute, which also takes ages to create an output file (complete with watermark). When I have a spare week, I might come back to it. Meanwhile, good luck to all you who are persisting with SuperResolution! John

Don't be sorry. I restarted the application and it worked as it ought. I should have done this automatically rather than rushing to the forums. I'm the one who should be sorry. John

I agree. I find it good for entering metadata using the presets. Unfortunately there is no way to use GPS data (either to add or find) via a map. John

This morning, I loaded a .png file and tried to resize by using Document > Resize. Affinity just ignored it. The value in the width field remained the same. I tried entering a pixel value, a percentage, to no avail. I tried unlocking the layer, and rasterizing the layer, again to no effect. I tried it on a freshly-developed .awr file (Sony raw) and on a .jpg file, again to no avail. I then tried applying one of my macros which does a resize, and this worked fine. Reverting to Document > Resize still did not work. It worked fine yesterday! John

Thanks @GabrielM On my screen, the Save button is on the lower edge, so I assumed that this was all there was! John

I have suddenly, over the last few days, started to get emails notifying me of Affinity Forum notifications. I don't remember what I did to start this. How can I stop them. I just want to see notifications at the top of the Affinity Forum page like I used to. Here is a snip of my Notification Settings: John

Thanks @Alfred. That would explain why I could not get @scaredycat to auto-complete. John

I read this petapixel article some time ago. It was what made me think "That's interesting, I must try it sometime." I did not actually try it out until @dronecrasher started this thread. Alignment is indeed an interesting aspect. I have been re-sizing first, then stacking with alignment. I must try it without the auto-alignment. I have also been trying out PhotoAcute. I have given it a run, but have not yet compared results. John

I've only used PP X9 for small-scale work, as I said. Just threefold leaflets, flyers and a 12-page booklet. John

Which one is which? I would be hard pressed to distinguish between these two? John

I use PagePlus (on Windows only) which works fine for my small-scale needs. John

Could you please describe your workflow to do that. John

Yes, I have tried this once, but I recall I had a devil of a job getting the target files into the program, after which it worked fine. I have, since then, use Affinity HDR or Photomatix. John

I have spent much of the morning with a batch of images of a fence panel. Unfortunately the Batch Processor will not work properly (output files are too dark) so I had to do all the work by hand, with a few judicious macros. I attach here one of the files resized 200%. I stacked 13 files from a burst-mode hand-held group and exported the median and the mean. All were identical to this sample image! I even tried layering them with a difference blending mode (which was black). I suspect that my subject matter is not really suitable for this technique.

Yes, that is what I thought. John

So, are you saying that you don't actually use HDR Efex Pro, you use Affinity's HDR Merge? John

I can recommend the Udemy tutorial Solid Foundations from Simon Foster (aka scaredycat). John

One possible problem is the contrast is insufficient for the alignment algorithm. Could you boost the contrast before trying to align? Another possibility which other astro-stackers in this forum have had is that there are objects on the horizon which, although they are a different shade of black from the sky, they seem to be the subjects that the alignment algorithm focusses on. If these are present, perhaps you could either reduce the contrast in the shadows (using Curves or Levels), or you could try blurring the edges of these objects. You might have to use batch processing. This should work for using Curves or Levels, but probably not for blurring. John

I used steps 1 and 2 as above. I'm not convinced about the validity of step 3, having tried it. I still maintain that there is no real visible improvement. I should have processed the first of my experimental bursts this morning. I will report back later. John