mann, I sympathize with your struggle with the ...

mann, I sympathize with your struggle with the imagej plugin turboreg.

After loading the images to be registered,

I would suggest that you proceed by:

image / stacks / convert images to stack
image / type / 16 bit
image / scale... / 2
duplicate the first image in the stack
plugin / turboreg and
select the translation
select Quality Accurate
click on the target image and
move the cursor to an area with lots
of high contrast detail and few shadows
click on the Batch button and
go have a coffee

When the 32 bit Registration stack has been created you should then check the registration by animating the stack by using

image / stacks / start animation

zoom into the an interesting area and look for any systematic movements. Ignore the JPGies jumping around.

If you are happy with the registration then you may proceed to the actual image processing.

One thing you might try is:

image / stacks / Z Project...

and create an average intensity projection.

If it looks OK, do a final image / adjust / brightness and contrast... to suit your artistic tastes and then and only then convert the image back to 8 bits and save.

Hope this helps.

I figured out today why the Phoenix team may be doing the "twitchy eye" filter combinations:

They are routinely combining the images into a "super resolution" image.

The procedure I just outlined is as close as we can get to their super-resolution images -- and well worth the time invested.

By the way, you can automate the procedure up to the actual registration with:

plugins / macros / record

Go through the above procedure

and then name and save the macro.

( I call mine ImageRegistration )

When you start imagej you can select

plugin / macro / install

and install the macro you recorded.

Works like a charm for routine stuff.