Russell Croman’s RC Astro has released standalone command-line versions of its most popular astrophotography tools, freeing BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, and StarXTerminator from their longtime dependency on PixInsight and Photoshop.
The new RC-Astro CLI, announced June 24 and currently in beta, lets users run all three machine-learning-powered tools from a terminal or integrate them directly into other applications. Siril and Seti Astro Suite Pro have already added support, with integration reportedly taking very little development time.
“Until now, StarXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator required PixInsight or Photoshop, and BlurXTerminator was tied exclusively to PixInsight due to deconvolution requiring linear data,” Croman wrote in the announcement. “With this release, the requirement for these host applications is eliminated.”
The CLI tool runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and expands GPU acceleration support on Windows to include AMD and Intel graphics alongside NVIDIA. No extra libraries like TensorFlow are needed — everything is bundled with the installer.
Existing license holders can download the CLI at no additional cost. The tool checks for license activation with RC-Astro servers and works entirely offline once activated and models are downloaded.
Pricing remains unchanged for the three tools now available as standalone. BlurXTerminator, the ML-powered deconvolution and sharpening tool, costs $99.95 and is available for both PixInsight and the new CLI. NoiseXTerminator, which handles intelligent noise reduction, is $59.95 and works across the CLI, PixInsight, Photoshop, and Affinity Photo. StarXTerminator, the industry-standard star removal tool, is priced at $49.95 and supports the same four platforms.
A Stand-Alone Bundle combining all three tools is available for $30 off the individual prices. Free trial licenses are also offered on the RC-Astro store.
BlurXTerminator remains exclusive to PixInsight and the CLI — Croman has stated it will not come to Photoshop because deconvolution requires linear image data that general photography applications do not handle. GradientXTerminator ($59.95) and StarShrink ($49.95) remain available as Photoshop and Affinity Photo plugins only, with no standalone version announced.
The beta status reflects the complexity of the CLI, which handles image format conversion, GPU acceleration across a wide range of hardware, and neural network inference in a single binary. Croman described it as “hiding a tremendous amount of complexity behind a relatively simple interface” and encouraged users to report bugs through the RC-Astro support system.
For developers, the CLI exposes a machine-readable JSON specification for all product parameters, enabling automatic GUI generation and self-updating integrations when new versions ship.
The move marks a significant shift in the astrophotography software landscape. PixInsight has long been the de facto processing platform for serious deep-sky imagers, and RC-Astro’s tools were a major reason many users invested in the $270 license. With standalone versions now available, astrophotographers can use BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, and StarXTerminator within any application that can call an external tool — or simply run them from the command line.