I'd like to open FITS files in CC

[johnb41279714]

Complete newbie to PS CC here. I take multiple exposures of the night sky and stack them in software to make dim, Deep Sky Objects (DSOs) like nebulae and galaxies visible. This method is very popular among astrophotographers. The format of choice both for acquisition and stacking appears to be FITS files. Currently I can't find a way to open FITS files in PS. I have to convert my FITS files into something PS opens natively. I know of 2 old standalone freeware packages which can do this but I wondered if anyone knew of a way to do it from within PS. 

[Jeff Arola]

This what i get when exporting your sample Fits as a 32 bit tiff from Liberator 4 on macOS Sonoma 14.3.1 and Photoshop 2024 (ps ver 25.5)

What is the image supposed to look like as far as the aspect ratio goes?

[Lumigraphics]

ImageJ opened and converted the file just fine, recognizing that it had three frames and playing an animation.

[billm51937703]

This is the png that I get from ASIStudio, the .tif needs to be the same to edit in PS:

[billm51937703]

Not sure I understand the "animation", the .fit file is just a stack of 259 individual exposures and should have no animation embedded anywhere to extract.  I guess the bottom line is that some other program has to be used to stretch the .fit file before it can be saved as an editable image in PS, something like Siril or Pixinsight...............just was hoping to be able to convert the .fit to .tif without all the extra steps.  

[billm51937703]

Don't have Mac, working on Windows and cannot seem to get the results you mention......................also not sure what Liberator 4 is.............tried the Libetrator Plugin for PS, did not work, tried the stand alone Liberator, could not get it to work, and have tried the on-line converter with no success.  

[billm51937703]

Tried to get ImageJ to give it a run, but site says not available for download....redirected me to something called Fiji which I am trying to get, but says it is a European server and so far have had it crash twice for "time-outs".  Will try again later and see what happens.  Thanks to all for your patience with a rookie!

[Lumigraphics]

Fiji is a fork of ImageJ. You can use either.

https://imagej.net/ij/download.html

https://imagej.net/software/fiji/downloads

[Lumigraphics]

What do you mean by stretch? What should the finished TIFF dimensions be?

[billm51937703]

Ok, the .tiff I get from stretching in Siril is 1080wx1920h.  Here are three screen shots.........the first is the .fit file opened in Siril, the second is the .tiff file I get from Siril after applying a Histogram AutoStretch, and the third is what the final image looks like after editing in Photoshop using the Astro Panel Pro X plugin.  It is just a little time consuming to have to go through Siril, as sometimes with galaxies other steps have to be performed with the background and such before saving as a .tiff...............wanted to find a way to go straight from .fit to .tif that is usable in PS.  Again, thanks!

[alanb976665]

Me too