Newb question - RAW stacking with DSS?

[pakarinen]

I was playing with DSS, JS9, and Photopea and some LRGB files from SLOOH. I don't have a bunch of files to stack, but DSS looks like a clean, user-friendly interface. After messing with the other two apps, I'm not sure I want to deal with lots of post processing of images.

Does anybody get decent images by just stacking RAW files from a DSLR in DSS without heavy post-processing? Dunno, maybe I should be considering EAA and livestacking.

Thanks.

[JayTee]

Does anybody get decent images by just stacking RAW files from a DSLR in DSS without heavy post-processing?

Rarely. Stacking is just one of the steps needed to get to the final image. Like I said only sometimes is the stacked image worth using as is.

[chris_g]

Does anybody get decent images by just stacking RAW files from a DSLR in DSS without heavy post-processing? Dunno, maybe I should be considering EAA and livestacking.

Thanks.

Maybe, if your shooting just stars. You can adjust contrast, RGB, and luminance levels in DSS in an extremely simplistic fashion. Definitely not with nebula and galaxies, that's where I'm at in my leaning process. And it's proving to be a steep learning curve!

[SkyHiker]

You can do light editing in DSS that gets you 90% of the way.

1) Broaden the RGB curves as much as possible to the same width using the left triangles
2) Align the curves as far as possible to the left using the mid triangles
3) Fix up the alignment with the right triangles as needed
4) Create a luminance curve like an S that goes up around the middle of the RGB peaks (experiment with slope etcetera - only 6 sliders)
5) Set the saturation to 20% - 40%

That should get you 90% of the way compared to other editors. With practice it will take 3 minutes. I do it every time.

If you want live stacking, there's DSS live. It processes the data as it comes in.