- Best Free Photo Editing Software For Mac
- Free Photo Stacking Software For Mac
- Free Photo Stacking Software For Mac Windows 7
- Mac Photo Software Reviews
It's been a good three years now since I swapped my HP laptop for a Macbook Pro. In the mean time, I've started doing a bit more astrophotography and of course the change of operating system has affected the tools I use to obtain and process photos.
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Amateur astronomers have traditionally mostly used Windows, so there are a lot of Windows tools, both freeware and payware, to help. I used to run the freeware ones in Wine on Ubuntu with varying levels of success.
When I first got the Mac, I had a lot of trouble getting Wine to run reliably and eventually ended up doing my alignment and processing manually in The Gimp. However, that's time consuming and rather fiddly and limited to stacking static exposures.
However, I've recently started finding quite a bit of Mac OS based astrophotography software. I don't know if that means it's all fairly new or whether my Google skills failed me over the past years :-)
Mac OS Windows. If you have a low download speed, please run the commands below and send us the result via the contact form. Windows (CMD): tracert heliconsoft.com ping -n 30 -l 1000 heliconsoft.com. MacOS (Terminal): traceroute heliconsoft.com ping -c 30 -s 1000 -i 0.5 heliconsoft.com. Focus Stacking is a simple technique. It’s easy to learn and easy to implement. The resulting photos, however, can be striking and unique. Read this review to find out if you need focus stacking software. Nov 18, 2017 Does anyone have any recommendations for free or affordable focus stacking software? I'm not going to be doing anything terribly sophisticated, and I doubt I'll be doing a lot of slices per image. I'm willing to buy something at a moderate price. Is the personal version of Zerene adequate? The middle level version is out of my price range. Jun 22, 2020 Granted, PixInsight, being the software of refinement for the category, there are tons of tutorials and guides online (Light Vortex Astronomy has some of the best ones and are free). But you need to spend a lot of time in front of your computer, particularly if you have an old one.
Software
I thought I'd document what I use, in the hope that I can save others who want to use their Macs some searching.
Some are Windows software, but run OK on Mac OS X. You can turn them into normal double click applications using a utility called WineSkin Winery.
Download a free 30-day trial. Or purchase a license now. Zerene Stacker is “focus stacking” software designed specifically for challenging macro subjects and discerning photographers. Of course it works great with simpler subjects, close-ups, and landscapes also!
Obtaining data from video camera:
- oaCapture (MacOS X, free)
- AstroImager (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
![Free photo stacking software for mac download Free photo stacking software for mac download](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126488363/615420627.jpg)
Format-converting video data:
- Handbrake (Mac OS X, free, open source)
Processing video data:
- AutoStakkert! (Windows + Wine, free for non-commercial use, donationware)
Obtaining data from DSLR:
- AstroDSLR (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
Processing and stacking DSLR files and post-processing video stacks:
- RegiStax (Windows + Wine, free)
- Nebulosity (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
Post-processing:
- The Gimp (Max OS X, free, open source)
Telescope guiding:
- AstroGuider (Mac OS X, payware, free trial)
- PHD2 (Mac OS X, free, open source)
Hardware
A few weeks ago I bought a ZWO ASI120MC-S astro camera, as that was on sale and listed by Nebulosity as supported by OSX. Until then I'd messed around with a hacked up Logitech webcam, which seemed to only be supported by the Photo Booth app.
I've not done any guiding yet (I need a way to mount the guide scope on the main scope - d'oh) but the camera works well with Nebulosity 4 and oaCapture. I'm looking forward to being able to grab Jupiter with it in a month or so and Saturn and Mars later this year.
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![Free Photo Stacking Software For Mac Free Photo Stacking Software For Mac](https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/fileSendAction/fcType/0/fcOid/70552247117150521/filePointer/70552247117150573/fodoid/70552247117150567/imageType/LARGE/inlineImage/true/Combine%20ZM%20Stacking.jpg)
The image to the right is a stack of 24x5 second unguided exposures of the trapezium in M42. Not too bad for a quick test on a half-moon night.
Settings
I've been fiddling with Nebulosity abit, to try and get it to stack the RAW images from my Nikon D750 as colour. I found a conversion matrix that was supposed to be decent, but as it turns out that made all images far too blue.
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The current matrix I use is listed below. If you find a better one, please let me know.
Mac Photo Software Reviews
R | G | B | |
---|---|---|---|
R | 0.50 | 0.00 | 1.00 |
G | 0.00 | 1.00 | 0.00 |
B | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.50 |