BackscatterXTerminator

[homodelphinius]

An interesting filter appears > https://www.goaskerin.com/backscatterxterminator/

 

Seems that in an automated way, inspired by astrophotography (see the history below), backscatter problems disappear in the postprocessing

 

HISTORY OF BSXT

Backscatter is a notorious problem for underwater photographers, and the idea for BSXT came about when Bruce Warner, a colleague of Erin Quigley, recognized an unexpected parallel between backscatter in underwater images and star fields in astrophotography. In both cases, tiny bright spots—whether particles in the water or stars in the sky—stand out against a darker background, and this shared visual issue sparked a great idea. Erin and Bruce approached the astrophotography AI software genius Russell Croman of RC Astro, and the rest is history! RC Astro was founded in Austin, Texas, by Russell Croman to create innovative solutions for astronomical image processing. Russell’s award-winning work has appeared in online and print publications including NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (16 photos) and National Geographic. He won the Advanced Imaging Conference’s Hubble Award in 2010 for significant and sustained contributions to the astrophotography community, and in 2024 he won the Photographic Society of America’s Progress Award, an honor he shares with Jacques Cousteau who won the award in 1977. Russell’s astrophotography tools have revolutionized the field of astrophotography, and are used world-wide by professionals and amateurs alike.

 

Has anybody use it yet?

 

I see that @Alex_Mustard in FB post has already test it.

[shokwaav]

[Luko]

I tried the trial version this morning. Very easy to download and use immediately after.

Of course I wanted to trick it on a photo mixing diver bubbles in the distance with some actual backscatter.

It eliminated the backscatter without touching to the bubbles : much better than a hand made selection.

VERY Impressive.

 

[Kamaros]

I was pretty impressed when I tested it yesterday. While I've tried other software that did a comparable job of getting rid of small specks of backscatter, I also tried it on a photo with large out-of-focus blobs of backscatter and it was able to identify those as backscatter and remove them as well. I also tested a photo with hotshots from strobes being too far forward (so the backscatter is on top of a light background instead of the usual dark background) and it was also able to handle that fairly well.

[humu9679]

Holy shit!

[Andrey Narchuk]

This is the first really working plugin for eliminating backlight. It collects most of the suspended matter both in water and on objects. It works with photos of different sizes and suspended matter of different sizes. And it practically does not spoil the image itself.

[Floris Bennema]

Although it says you need a NVIDIA Graphic card on your computer I tried a trial version on my Windows laptop with Intel Iris Xe Graphics. It works, about 3 minutes for a 20 Mb image.

 

 

Edited 20 hours ago by Floris Bennema

[bghazzal]

Any video plugin version in the making? (asking for a friend 😁)

[SwiftFF5]

@bghazzal I was about to ask the same thing!

[homodelphinius]

i have not yet test it but seems that will be the ONLY one plugin in PS that i will buy.

In regards to video, as video = photos in dense sequence, i cannot see problem to be implemented apart from the time that will need to process that.

 

Why not asking the developer for such a great tool?

[Dave_Hicks]

Just for fun, I tried one of the free astrophotography star-remover apps, StarNet++. It works nearly as well as this paid solution, but you'd have to do a bit of plumbing to get it to automatically create the layers in PS. It only takes a couple of clicks to get the same result making a pair of layers. There are numerous youtube tutorials that show you how to use it StarNet++.

 

I don't know how much customization they did with StarExterminator to remake it into BackscatterExterminator, but StarNet++ works pretty darn well on UW photos as is. 

 

 

 

 

[Floris Bennema]

1 hour ago, Dave_Hicks said:

I don't know how much customization they did with StarExterminator to remake it into BackscatterExterminator, but StarNet++ works pretty darn well on UW photos as is. 

 

 

 

 

Just compared BackscatterXTerminator with the 3x cheaper (hey, I am Dutch!) StarXTerminator, from the same developer. StarXTerminator mostly gave a result halfway the original image and BXT. Only on very dark parts the results were more or less the same. Another advantage of BXT is that it produces an extra layer that allows you to bring back parts (like whiskers) that were wrongly removed. Like to compare StarNet++ one day.

[bghazzal]

8 hours ago, homodelphinius said:

In regards to video, as video = photos in dense sequence, i cannot see problem to be implemented apart from the time that will need to process that.

 

Why not asking the developer for such a great tool?

done.
Video cleaning tools are mostly noise reducing plugins like Neat Video or Topaz AI, but there is no backscatter focused application (which would be fantastic, if technically feasible!)

[shokwaav]

Before

After 

 

As expected it struggles with whale sharks 🤣

Edited 6 hours ago by shokwaav

[Whiskeyjack]

Is this only for PS? I only use Lightroom and have no real need for photoshop...

[Chris Ross]

9 hours ago, Floris Bennema said:

 

 Another advantage of BXT is that it produces an extra layer that allows you to bring back parts (like whiskers) that were wrongly removed. Like to compare StarNet++ one day.

You don't need an app to do that for you, just process a copy and copy it in as a new layer and mask it, simple enough to do in Photoshop.

[RomiK]

WOW! I can finally process so many images otherwise left for 'some day' 😍null

[ChipBPhoto]

6 hours ago, Whiskeyjack said:

Is this only for PS? I only use Lightroom and have no real need for photoshop...

Hi @Whiskeyjack,

 

Yes, it is only for PS.  The reason is it is actually a PS “Action” that activates a separate layer.  Unfortunately, LR is not able to work in layers which is why both PS and LR still coexist.  
 

Have a great weekend!

chip