How to remove a baseline without using sgolayfilt

I have around 1000 files, see attached graphs, and I want them to all be on the same baseline for direct comparison. I have tried the sgolayfilt with code below, however that removes a lot of features in my data as it is essentially a damping technique aswell. I was wondering if there was a baseline function that let you manually input points for fitting?

windowWidth = 101
    polynomialOrder = 3
    baselineY = sgolayfilt(y, polynomialOrder, windowWidth);

      figure(1)
      plot(x, baselineY,'r');
      title('Baseline graph');
      xlabel('Wavenumber (cm-1)');
      ylabel('Absorbance (a.u)');

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

It depends on what you intend by ‘baseline’ (that you did not define).

The detrend function could be what you want.

EDIT —

To illustrate detrend:

x = linspace(900, 1900);
y1 = randn(size(x)) + cumsum(ones(size(x)))*0.3 + 1;
y2 = randn(size(x)) + cumsum(ones(size(x)))*0.9 + 2;

y1d = detrend(y1);
y2d = detrend(y2);

figure(1)
subplot(2,1,1)
plot(x, y1,    x, y2)
title('Original')
grid
subplot(2,1,2)
plot(x, y1d,    x, y2d)
title('Detrended')
grid

Answer 2

[Luuk van Oosten]

As far as I know, sgolayfilt does not subtract the background signal (what I think you mean when you refer to 'same baseline'), but just smooths the data (sometimes also referred to as "noise reduction").

If you want an easy plug-and-play function to correct the baseline of your signals I would suggest the following :

Y_subtracted = msbackadj(X_yoursignal,Y_yoursignal);

[mabinj]

Thank you, I'll try this. No it doesn't subtract the background feature, I did that myself as I want to analyse peak height of all my data I need them to be basically ontop of one another. But will try this function, thank you :)

[mabinj]

What I really want to do is make sure all my spectra are centered on a line at y=0. So I ideally want a function that allows me to manually input y values that I want to base a linear line off, then subtract that linear line from my data. So, although the inbuilt baseline function matlab has, has worked to put all my data files within the same y area (between y=0 and y=5) I would much rather have manipulated the baseline with actual data values I manually input. Is there a way to do this in matlab?

[Image Analyst]

Use this code to ask your user to manually/interactively enter the 2 y values you need.

% Ask user for two floating point numbers.
defaultValue = {'45.67', '78.91'};
titleBar = 'Enter a value';
userPrompt = {'Enter y1 : ', 'Enter y2: '};
caUserInput = inputdlg(userPrompt, titleBar, 1, defaultValue);
if isempty(caUserInput),return,end; % Bail out if they clicked Cancel.
% Convert to floating point from string.
usersValue1 = str2double(caUserInput{1})
usersValue2 = str2double(caUserInput{2})
% Check usersValue1 for validity.
if isnan(usersValue1)
    % They didn't enter a number.  
    % They clicked Cancel, or entered a character, symbols, or something else not allowed.
  % Convert the default from a string and stick that into usersValue1.
    usersValue1 = str2double(defaultValue{1});
    message = sprintf('I said it had to be a number.\nTry replacing the user.\nI will use %.2f and continue.', usersValue1);
    uiwait(warndlg(message));
end
% Do the same for usersValue2
% Check usersValue2 for validity.
if isnan(usersValue2)
    % They didn't enter a number.  
    % They clicked Cancel, or entered a character, symbols, or something else not allowed.
  % Convert the default from a string and stick that into usersValue2.
    usersValue2 = str2double(defaultValue{2});
    message = sprintf('I said it had to be a number.\nTry replacing the user.\nI will use %.2f and continue.', usersValue2);
    uiwait(warndlg(message));
end

Adapt as needed.

[mabinj]

Thank you, I will do so.

Thanks for all the help!