Color balance, live stacking

[andriy_melnykov]

Hi!
Again a question regarding color balance during live stacking.
I can not figure it out, how can I do two things simultaneously: cut background illumination level and adjust color balance of the object.
So, I leave color balance in camera settigns at default - because I often use subs for stacking off-line.
For live stacking I use option "Auto color balance from histogram peaks" - peaks are mostly from background illumination and they are then adjusted to have the same level. After that I cut background illumination with "Black level" of the histogram curve. And now I would like to adjust the color balance of the object itself, but can not find a way to do it... I must stay with color balance, that actually defined from background illumination color - be it the moon with blueish color or light pollution with warm color.
Is there a way to adjust color balance during live stacking without affecting background illumination cutting?
Or cut background illumination individually for RGB channels?

Thanks!

[admin]

Hi,

if you have a strong background (perhaps light pollution) then you could try using the 'background subtraction' feature in SharpCap which will estimate and remova a constant background level from each colour channel in each frame as it is captured and before it is added to the stack. This will help remove any colour cast to the background before it becomes part of the stack and may well be the best appraoch.

The live stacking adjustments do not give you the ability to remove different amounts from each colour channel, so they may not give you the adjustment that you need, although you can usually get decent results by a bit of manual tweaking of one or other of the auto colour balance options.

Hope this helps,

Robin

[andriy_melnykov]

Hi, thanks!
Didn't use the background subtraction before, will try it.
Does this feature have influence on saved subs?

[admin]

Hi,

the story for influencing the saved subs is the same as for the other controls in the pre-processing section...

* If you are just saving then the saved files *are* affected by those controls - ie dark, flat, background subtraction, satellite trail removal, etc.

* If you are live stacking then the saved files *are not* affected - the 'RAW' saved files during live stacking are exactly what comes from the camera with no changes made by SharpCap.

Although this sounds a bit confusing, it tends to match the goals of most people when imaging - if you want the raw images when live stacking then you probably want to process them from scratch. If you are not live stacking then you do not see so much in the individual frames, so you would only turn on those processing options if you wanted them to affect the saved files.

cheers,

Robin