This command smoothes the color variations in the image without affecting the overall image sharpness. Color composites can often contain color noise, especially when CCD cameras with low blue sensitivity are used. Since the human eye is more sensitive to brightness variations than color variations, the appearance of an image with color noise can be improved without losing sharpness.
This command is also useful for ”single shot” color cameras. Due to the arrangement of color filters on the detector, color ”aliasing” effects can appear around bright stars. A mild filter with this command removes the unwanted color effects.
The Filter Type options work identically to those in the FFT Filter and Kernel Filter commands. The Set User Filter button also works identically to the control of the same name in the Kernel Filter dialog.
For FFT Filters, the Cutoff field controls the strength of the filter. The Cutoff radius is entered as a percentage of the image dimensions. Entering a smaller value produces a stronger filter; i.e. it increases the radius of the blur.
The Weight field (percent) is used to control how much filtering is applied. At 100%, the full strength of the filter is applied. At lower percentages, a portion of the color information from the original image is used in addition to that of the filtered image.
Availability of this feature depends on Product Level.