The FITS Liberator has become the industry standard for professional imaging scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

[citation needed] Version 1 of the ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator was completed in July 2004 by imaging scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The basic workflow is to open a FITS image, study it in the Preview window, adjust the black-and-white levels (6) to give a reasonable contrast and then set the input range for the scaling of the image by clicking the Auto Scaling Button (7).

Updates included: A section of v2.0 was dedicated to metadata input and the user also was given access to a text version of the original FITS header.

An updated version of the software containing new scaling and stretching tools allows more manipulation of astronomical images.