WBRgroups

Aloha to you too Keahi, thanks for the quick reply. I did not know, that RAW files are handled this way by the iCloud syncing process. Making a duplicate seems to store a copy of the file locally, just like you said, and everything works like a charm =) Pity, that this workaround is needed anyway. It would be cool to seamlessly edit RAWs on whatever machine and having the data synced to iCloud. Thanks again for the help! Mahalo

Concerning the ability to perform raw editing on images from the photo library, I‘ve found there to be a very odd behaviour when those raws have been synced to the iPad via photo library. I‘ll try to describe the problem: When i plug the camera into the iPad via the USB Camera Adapter, I can import RAW files into the photo library and edit them as RAW files in AP. With iCloud syncing turned on, those RAW files are also synced to my Macbook, where I can also edit them if i choose to. So, as long as you use the iPad to bring the files in, all is fine. But, when I plug the camera into the Macbook, and import the RAW files there, it doesn‘t work like that. Obviously I can edit them on the Macbook without problems, but via iCloud the files are also synced to the iPad, they even are marked as RAW files in the AP import screen. But when I open those RAW files with AP on the iPad, AP takes me directly into Photo Persona, and the file is not recognized as a RAW file. I‘ve tried this with multiple files and sizes, the outcome is always the same: RAW files that were moved onto the iPad via the USB cable can be edited as RAWs on the iPad, while files that got onto the iPad via iCloud syncing can not. Either way around, AP on the Macbook recognizes the files as RAWs properly, no matter how they got into the photo library. Can someone explain this to me? Am I doing something wrong on the iPad? Maybe someone could try to reproduce this, so we would know if this is just me, or if it concerns all of us trying to edit RAWs on the iPad, that were synced via iCloud. Thank you! =)

Yes, of course, I did not think of it that way (duh...). I had all layers visible when dragging the images in the live stack. When I did it layer by layer, only two were visible at the same time. Thank you for this insight!

Thank you all for the greatly appreciated input. I tried both methods and they both work with a nearly identical outcome (at least to my eyes). The only thing I stumbled upon is that my Macbook gets seriously slow when I use the manual alignment in a live stack method by owenr. Maybe thats just my machine, but it seemed to me, that using separate layers like John does is somehow easier on the hardware resources, because not all images need to be visible at the same time. Here's what I ended up with after stacking 50 shots and some final fiddling around =)

Thank you so much! I greatly appreciate this. How did you align the images by hand? I thought about zooming in on one star (or star trail) and then pretty much dragging and dropping the other layers on it, so the positions match. I‘m going to try this tonight with a large stack of 50 images. It‘s a pity though, that AP can‘t do this with the automatic alignment of layers. I‘m going to report back, when I‘m done dragging and dropping lots of layers =) Thank you again, John.

Well unfortunately, enhancing contrast before stacking didn't do the trick, please see screenshot. I used batch processing to apply a recorded macro to 10 pictures so they would have sufficient contrast. I included the resulting images. Maybe you could check if they are so particularly bad, they are unusable for stacking with AP. And if you can get them to be aligned properly, please let me know how you did it =) Thank you! ND5_0084.tif ND5_0085.tif ND5_0086.tif ND5_0087.tif ND5_0088.tif ND5_0089.tif ND5_0090.tif ND5_0091.tif ND5_0092.tif ND5_0093.tif

Thank you John for the quick reply. I think there are no other objects within the frame, so the alignment algorithm should not be confused by that. Or at least I could not find those objects. Enhancing contrast before stacking sounds like a smart thing to do. I'm going to try that and report back. Thank you!

I'm hoping I put this in the right topic, but there's a chance since I'm trying to stack a series of shots (between 10 and 50) into a single one for noise reduction (so explicitly no star trails). The thing is, I can't get the alignment to work. There is absolutely no difference in the outcome, whether I check the box for alignment or not. On the one hand, that creates the kind of nice star trails I often see around here, but that is exactly the opposite of what I was trying to achieve. I tried different kinds of shots (few stars or a lot of stars in the frame) and various filetypes (raw / tiff / jpeg). I also tried the two different options concerning the alignment. The outcome is always the same: No alignment at all (Please see attached picture. The mode in the layer stack is set to maximum on purpose so you can see the startrails I didn't want to create). I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong. Maybe someone can help me with this. Please =)