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NightScape Lab vs. GraXpert
GraXpert removes gradients, it does it well, and it costs nothing. The cost isn’t money — it’s that it’s one more application standing between your stack and your Photoshop edit.
What GraXpert does well
GraXpert is free, open-source gradient removal that produces genuinely good results — background extraction that handles sky glow and vignetting cleanly, with both classic and AI-assisted methods. The community likes it for good reason, and “free and good at its one job” is exactly what it claims to be. If gradient removal were the only thing standing between you and a finished image, GraXpert would be a hard tool to argue against.
The difference: one more app in the chain
GraXpert is standalone. Using it from a Photoshop workflow means the full loop for every image: export from wherever you stacked, open in GraXpert, process, export again, re-import into Photoshop — and mind the color management at every seam. It also does exactly one thing, so the loop buys you one step of a multi-step finish.
In NightScape Lab, gradient and light-pollution correction is the second tool in the ordered workflow (white balance → light pollution → stars → defringe), correcting per channel so the color casts come out with the brightness — and it runs inside Photoshop, on the linear master the Stacker panel just built from your RAWs. No chain, no seams: the file never leaves the document you’re editing.
The chain, drawn plainly
Workflow diagram from real steps: (top row) stack → export → GraXpert → export → re-import to Photoshop → continue finishing; (bottom row) Stacker panel → master opens → Light Pollution tool → next tool. Count the arrows and label each color-management handoff. GraXpert’s result quality is not the subject — the chain is.
Who should choose which
Choose GraXpert if your workflow already lives outside Photoshop, or you only occasionally need gradient removal and free matters more than integrated. It’s a good tool at the best possible price.
Choose NightScape Lab if you finish in Photoshop and would rather have gradient correction as one ordered step among the stacking and finishing tools — per-channel, in-document, no round trip — for $99, once, covering the whole workflow.
Fewer apps between you and the finished image.
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