A Guide to Seestar's AI Enhance

[00:00:03]With the latest version of the Sea Star app, ZWO introduced something they call AI enhancement, which gives us more options and control for post-processing our images right within the Sea Star app.

[00:00:20]Hi, I'm Curtis and in this short video, I will explain what AI enhancement does and I'll give you a step-by-step guide of how you can use it to post-process your own images. As always, if you find this video helpful, I would ask that you hit the like button. I encourage you to subscribe and if you would like to support this channel at no extra cost to you, you can do so by using my affiliate links down below this video. Let's first discuss what AI enhancement involves.

[00:00:53]The first thing it does is apply a D noiseis algorithm which smooths out the high frequency noise in the background of our images which is what causes that graininess appearance. Now, the sea star app has had a D noiseise algorithm for some time. What's new here, as you will see, is our ability to control the amount of D noise applied to our images.

[00:01:18]The second feature of AI enhancement is a star reduction capability, which is new with the latest app. The star reduction algorithm shrinks oversized and bloated stars, making them more sharp and pinpoint. It even allows us to remove all of the stars in the image, leaving only the nebulosity visible in the final image. AI enhancement also gives us the capability to rotate and resize our image. AI enhancement also applies contrast and brightness adjustments to help bring out fine detail like nebulosity in our images.

[00:02:00]With the latest version of the app, we have complete control over how much of each of those features are applied to our images. We can play around with the image, applying more or less of any one or all of those capabilities to see which version of the image we like best.

[00:02:18]and then we can save and download the final processed image. So, how do we access and apply AI enhancement? To use AI enhancement, you will need an image that is already stacked. So, if you've done a live stacking session the night before, you already have everything you need to get started. If on the other hand you've used the continuous mode to save a bunch of individual frames without stacking them, you'll first have to go through the deep sky stacker and then you can access AI enhancement on that final stacked image. So let's take a look at how we use AI enhancement.

[00:03:00]What some people may not realize is that the enhancement procedure is taking place through the app on your phone or tablet, not within the sea star itself.

[00:03:12]So we have to first make sure that the image is downloaded to our phone or tablet. That also brings up another fact. Many people who have older phones or tablets are finding that either it's taking a very long time to finish the post-processing using AI enhancement or it fails completely and that's because their phones or tablets do not have the processing capability and or storage capability to use the new AI enhancement feature. It's an unfortunate reality and I think has caused some people a lot of angst. So if that's happening to you, at least you know why it's happening. If the image is already downloaded on your phone, you could simply go into post-processing and go into AI enhancement and then select the image that you want. What you see here are all the images which have been previously downloaded to my phone for AI enhancement. But let's go back.

[00:04:15]But if it's not already downloaded, you're going to have to do that first.

[00:04:19]So in order to do that, go into my album. Go into the sea star, not your phone or tablet. So the internal storage of the sea star, then scroll to the image you want. So I'll take an older image here that I haven't processed before.

[00:04:37]I see 5146.

[00:04:40]Tap on that. So, let's take one of those. Tap on the one on the upper leftand corner. You can see it's a stacked image by the by the stacking icon in the upper left corner of the thumbnail. Tap on that.

[00:04:54]And now it brings us to this page in the upper right hand corner. Let's hit the symbol that was the D noiseis symbol from before. And this will cause the image to be downloaded to my phone.

[00:05:07]And it's been imported successfully.

[00:05:09]Let's hit view. Now you see it's been added to the list of other images that have been downloaded for AI enhancement.

[00:05:18]So let's click on the one on the upper left just for demonstration. Now we're in the page where we can do the AI enhancement. Tap on AI enhancement. And the first option we get is for resizing the image. So the original is a 9 by16 which is the native format of the imager in the S50 that I have. We can resize it to 34 23 or 1. So you have different aspect ratios that you can use. I'll go back to 916.

[00:05:52]We can also rotate it if we like. If we don't like what we get, we can hit the reset button in the upper right hand corner. We can flip the image vertically.

[00:06:03]I'll put it back. Or flip it left and right. I'll put that back. One thing that's missing on my phone in the upper right hand corner that you may see on yours is BIN 2. If you see that, it's because the Sea Star app has determined that the processing capability on your phone is limited. It will still work.

[00:06:25]you're better off to use the bin 2 which means it will resize your image through a process called binning. Normally the image is one by one. So every pixel is read out as a single pixel. In bin 2 it will read out four pixels as if it is one. So 2x two matrix which is four pixels counts on those four pixels are then combined into a single count creating one larger pixel. So you reduce the size of the files by a factor of four and it will speed up processing.

[00:07:02]Now you don't have to do that you but you can try it out and see if the result works for you. It'll certainly speed up the processing. Once you're finished with this page you hit next.

[00:07:13]And now it's doing an automatic uh enhancement. It has performed a pre-selected amount of D noiseis and star reduction along with contrast, brightness and color saturation adjustments. Now in many cases those presets to the AI enhancement algorithm may produce an image which is totally satisfactory and pleasing to you. If not, you can make individual adjustments to the amount of star reduction by adjusting by adjusting the slider up or down. You see, I'm removing more stars.

[00:07:51]All of the stars are gone. I can go to there.

[00:07:56]I can adjust the D noiseis. You see how much D noiseis it employed. I could do less. I could go back to where it was. I could adjust the brightness, the contrast, and the color saturation to my liking. If I didn't like that, I can go back, hit the reset.

[00:08:21]Okay. And it's now it's going to be back to what it was when I first came into the AI enhancement. And then we can compare that by tapping on compare. Now, this is the original image. And this is what it looks like with the preset settings on the AI enhancement.

[00:08:42]And if we like that, we can hit the save button. And it will save it. If you don't like it, hit the cancel button and discard enhancement. And you should go back. Should be back to the original image as it looked here. As you can see, it's very easy to use the new AI enhancement feature, which gives us access to some additional features, much more control over post-processing our images right within the Sea Star app itself. The nice thing is you can make adjustments to your image and if you don't like them, you can cancel them.

[00:09:19]You can save several different versions of an enhancement and see what you like better later on a larger screen. And let me share with you a few before and after images I've taken with my S50 and my S30 Pro.

[00:09:49]I hope you found this short video helpful in explaining the AI enhancement features. Don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe.