ChannelDesigner – Compact Feature Guide

Purpose

ChannelDesigner is a PixInsight script for designing, blending, and previewing RGB and narrowband channel mixes (SHO, HOO, Foraxx, custom palettes). It also supports cropping, stretching, and generating final RGB or grayscale images.

1. Automatic Channel Assignment

• Automatically detects filter postfixes (_R, _G, _B, _S, _H, _O).
• Falls back to the first image if no matches are found.
• Restores settings and images from saved process instances.
• Preview updates instantly when adjusting weights.

2. Adding Extra Channel Sets

• Add multiple 3-channel sets (e.g., RGB + SHO).
• Single filters (e.g., Hα) can fill all three slots; set unused weights to zero.
• Blend RGB stars with narrowband starless data.
• Create palettes like HOO, SHO, Foraxx.

3. Reordering Channels

• Cycle through filter orders at the top controls.
• “Lock rotation” restricts rotation to a single channel set.
• Very useful when a single multi-channel image is loaded.

4. Preview, Zoom & Full Resolution

• Fast low-resolution preview for responsive interaction.
• Zoom with mouse wheel or buttons.
• Right-click when zoomed → full-resolution preview.
• Status bar shows coordinates and zoom information.

5. Cropping

• Draw crop region with the mouse; draggable and resizable.
• Aspect ratios: free or 16:9.

6. Auto-Stretch for Linear Data

• Automatically stretches linear input images.
• Creates new image with postfix _CD_stretched.
• Keeps original image type and preserves filter postfixes.

7. Channel Weights & MTF

• Adjust individual channel contributions.
• MTF behaves like PixInsight’s HistogramTransformation.
• Includes presets for creating Foraxx (SOO + HHH) blends.
• Quick reset buttons available.

8. Generating Final Images

• Create grayscale or RGB output images.
• Crop is applied automatically if defined.