Since you are just starting out here in astronomical imaging with a DSLR camera, we will assume no previous knowledge of image processing.

Bundled Software

Most DSLR cameras come with software from the manufacturer that will allow you to adjust your images.

Canon supplies Digital Photo Professional (DDP) and Zoom Browser. Zoom Browser provides basic image browsing and cataloging and allows some basic adjustments to the contrast and color, and DPP allows some more sophisticated adjustments to Raw images, but is more complicated to use.

Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP) is bundled with Canon's DSLR cameras.

Likewise, Nikon offers Nikon ViewNX with their latest digital cameras for browsing and basic image adjustments. A more sophisticated offering called Nikon Capture NX is sold separately.

If you already have this software that came with your camera and you are familiar with it, then you can certainly use it to adjust and correct your images. However, not everyone has this software. Some earlier model cameras didn't come with it.

There are some freeware image processing programs out there such as GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIIMP), Paint.NET, and some free web sites such as Google's Picassa that allow image editing over the web.

Commercial software vendors offer a wide variety of reasonably priced image editing programs that are a bit more sophisticated, such as Photoshop Elements, Picture Window Pro and Paintshop Pro. And of course, there is the monster daddy of them all, Photoshop. Photoshop is, unfortunately, ridiculously expensive and extremely complicated, but it is the gold standard in image processing for normal photography.

For more advanced specialized astronomical image processing, we have a wide variety of excellent programs from which to choose. From freeware like Deepsky Stacker and RegIm, to modestly priced but powerful commercial software like Nebulosity and AIP (Astronomical Image Processing), to high-end more expensive software like Images Plus and Maxim, there are many great programs.

Here we will describe the use of IrfanView, a very simple freeware program that is primarily made for normal daytime photography. We will be able to do some basic image adjustments for astrophotography in IrfanView:

• Cropping and rotating
• Color adjustment
• Contrast enhancement
• Resizing and resampling
• Sharpening

These adjustments are all very similar, no matter what software you are using.

In section 707, Reducing Noise, we'll also discuss using another freeware program called Noiseware Community Edition that will reduce the noise in an image.

IrfanView

Irfanview is a simple, free, image viewing program that offers very basic image processing capabilities.

IrfanView is pronounced "EarfanView". It is a great freeware program by Irfan Skiljan that does a lot of different things. Besides basic image adjustments it will also let you view, sort, and convert your images to different file formats, as well as create slide-shows with audio tracks.

Software for Image Processing - The Bottom Line Image processing software can help improve your images by letting you crop, rotate, resize and resample your images, as well as perform basic color corrections.