I've been playing with an editing program.
I can't really talk about it, because we're writing the manual, and so there is a non-disclosure agreement.
But I do like it. On the upside, it's (unlike photoshop) meant purely for editing pictures. This means a lot of the extras, which make Photoshop both so expensive, and such a memory hog.
It's a simple interface. Sort of like playing in the darkroom, when making a print. But all the various things one might want to do, are easy, and they seem to stack without any real interference, one to the next. The data seems to start from zero at each change, so there isn't any building up of oddities and artifacts.
Right now I'm playing with RAW files, but it works with .tiffs, and with .jpgs, so it looks to be a powerful tool for good editing for those people who don't want to play with RAW.
It's also really good at converting color to B&W. With a picture that isn't in drastic need of major problem fixing, it can do some solid improvements in a couple of minutes. For stuff that has real problems, it's still fast. I don't think I've had a picture which needed more than about five minutes of playing around. I've also saved some stuff that Photoshop, and Bibble, couldn't really do more than make decent.
The stacking of stuff, each treating the data as new, seems to make it possible to treat things as though one had completely masked the paper, and still got a decent blend between the various zones.
There's still a lot of tinkering, as the various bells and whistles (which don't seem to be really needed, the four or five big-hitters seem capable of fixing most of the problems most photogrpahers have).
By way of illustration I offer up the following picture, unedited, and as corrected.
They are largish, and I am just going to link to them. They will open in new window/tabs. For those who don't like bugs, this is a praying mantis. Note, in particular, the detail in the facial scutes. I wish the subtleties of the .tif versions was available for real evaluation.
Before
After
I can't really talk about it, because we're writing the manual, and so there is a non-disclosure agreement.
But I do like it. On the upside, it's (unlike photoshop) meant purely for editing pictures. This means a lot of the extras, which make Photoshop both so expensive, and such a memory hog.
It's a simple interface. Sort of like playing in the darkroom, when making a print. But all the various things one might want to do, are easy, and they seem to stack without any real interference, one to the next. The data seems to start from zero at each change, so there isn't any building up of oddities and artifacts.
Right now I'm playing with RAW files, but it works with .tiffs, and with .jpgs, so it looks to be a powerful tool for good editing for those people who don't want to play with RAW.
It's also really good at converting color to B&W. With a picture that isn't in drastic need of major problem fixing, it can do some solid improvements in a couple of minutes. For stuff that has real problems, it's still fast. I don't think I've had a picture which needed more than about five minutes of playing around. I've also saved some stuff that Photoshop, and Bibble, couldn't really do more than make decent.
The stacking of stuff, each treating the data as new, seems to make it possible to treat things as though one had completely masked the paper, and still got a decent blend between the various zones.
There's still a lot of tinkering, as the various bells and whistles (which don't seem to be really needed, the four or five big-hitters seem capable of fixing most of the problems most photogrpahers have).
By way of illustration I offer up the following picture, unedited, and as corrected.
They are largish, and I am just going to link to them. They will open in new window/tabs. For those who don't like bugs, this is a praying mantis. Note, in particular, the detail in the facial scutes. I wish the subtleties of the .tif versions was available for real evaluation.
Before
After
no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 03:44 am (UTC)I need to play with some .jpgs, to see how much I'll be able to, personally, reccomend it for people who don't have cameras which shoot raw, but I think, based on how both manipulates the data (and talk to me in a couple of months when I can talk more about it) and how it keeps track of the manipulation, that it is about as close as I've seen to a way to recover some of the potential lost when the .jpg compression is done.
A lot will depend on the math of the compression (be it Photoshop, in camera, or some other application).
One of the things I ought to do it play with some similar .jpgs from various sources. I have three ways to compress images myself, and can just right click some to get a few unknown methods.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-12 04:07 am (UTC)What I like in that correction, is that it kept the vibrance of the blue in the trim of the mouth-shield.
TK