Post by howie1 on Mar 1, 2017 3:14:36 GMT
Feb 28, 2017 20:13:24 GMT @atlantajack said:
Can't wait to get the stacking up and running. About that, a question for Howie / "Carl":In your vid you seem to be pulling darks and other calibration files into the "stew" of the monitor folder. I note that DSS allows you to create darks files and such and store them. When using Astro Toaster, to employ darks is it necessary to lodge them in the monitor folder? If in another program you create a master calibration file, can you simply add that one file in the monitor? Or, does Astro Toaster / DSS work to find the calibration files in the native DSS folders.
Either ...
1. Create the Masters with another program or within DSS itself ...
If you create the Master darks, flats, bias etc in DSS (IE create them in an external program), no problem. Just drag and drop the Master file into the Toaster "File List" and on the drop, it asks what type it is (IE dark, flat, bias, etc). It will color the little colored square to the left of the files name with black (if it was a dark), purple (I think if it was bias) and so on. And it will have it "ticked" or selected to be used when Toaster is processing light frames. If you drag in only one (underline one) Master which happens to have been created for iso/gain of 400 and an exp time of 30 secs, then it will be used for every shot you take no matter what iso/gain and exp time you shoot the lights at. If, however, you drag and drop in a bunch of Masters covering iso/gains from 200 to 9600 (say) and exp times from 10 sec to 180 sec, you can then shoot at any gain/iso and exp time you like, and when processing the lights it will automatically choose the Master which best fits the iso/gain and exp time you shot the frames at.
2. Create the Masters within Toaster ...
Best is with example ... lets create a Master dark. Cap scope and take 20 dark frames (say). Drag and drop the 20 dark frames into the Toaster "File List". Again - on the drop - it asks what type it is (dark, flat, etc). It will again color the little square to the left of the file names with black (darks), purple, etc, and again it will "check/select" them. However, to create the Master, you then have to click the button "ReCalibrate Darks" button down near the lower right of the File List window. It will use DSS in the background to create the Master from the frames you dragged into Toaster and you'll see a MASTER_some-filename-in-here appear in the Toaster File List for you. BTW, even though the button says "ReCalibrate Darks", it actually does flats, bias, offset etc ! Just hover over the button and it tells you "Re Calibrate Master for Dark, Flats, Bias, Offsets in Monitor folder". Once it has created the Master and see it in the File List, you may then click on (to select) all the individual frames used to create that Master, and right click on them to Delete them. It doesnt need the individual frames from which it has created the Master from. It only uses the MASTER_filename to process the lights.
Now there is one gotcha which you need to understand ... DSS creates the Master in whatever folder you created the individual ref frames.
So if you take the dark/flat etc frames and those individual ref frames are lodging themselves in the Monitor folder. It doesnt matter if you drag them into DSS to create the Master, or let Toaster create the Master, DSS in the background will create the Master in the Monitor folder! So next time (or anytime) you start up Toaster and tell it to delete the last sessions files ... then your Master frame(s) are deleted too! Because they were create in the folder being monitored!
IE ... you really SHOULD take the individual dark/flat etc frames in a separate folder, then drag those individual files into DSS, or into Toaster. Then DSS/Toaster will make the Master in that separate folder. So then if you tell Toaster to delete all session files, it wipes clean its File List / folder which it monitors ... but doesnt touch the Masters in that separate folder.
So, once you have your Masters set up in separate folder(s), then whenever you start Toatsre, just drag and drop all the ones you reckon you will need into the File List tagging it as a dark/flat etc. And it will be used as the Master.
Oh yeah, and you can only use RAW type files (TIF, FITS, etc) to create darks etc. Can't make a Jpeg dark!
Cheers
Howie (the Aussie one)