Vibrance and Exposure controls in photoline ?

[greenmorpher]

One trick you might want to try, to give your images that little bit of extra "pop", is something that was available in Paint Shop Pro as their "Clarify" filter. ... PhotoSlop badly missed having this tool ... [It] is the very same as PhotoLine's "Filter > Other > Median" filter, but applied with negative intensity values. ... PSP's version would often badly over-apply this effect with its one-size-fits-all algorithm. The one in PhotoLine gives you precise control so your image never looks over-worked or muddy, but still gives it that bit of vibrancy and "pop" to make an otherwise flat image stand-out. ... Just don't over-apply it, which is easy to do.

And there's the nomenclature question again -- PSP's "Clarify" tells the user something -- not necessarily the best message, but it is at least user oriented.

PL's "Median" is an engineer's description which means nothing to the users except that it's between "Maximum" and "Minimum". And what's the difference between all three? From the Manual, I can't really see what the difference is. And there is NO mention of going into negative.

Experimentation suggests that "Maximum" goes for the higher end of the curve, "Median" treats both highlights and shadows equally, and "Minimum" goes for the lower end of the curve, the shadows.

Now -- Kooee says using negative values in Median gives 'pop' to pix. And then what about the positive end of that (those) filter(s)? We have serious noise reduction in Median, but what do we make of Maximum and Minimum?

Samples -- (not as good as I meant them to be, but I have to do some work! )

But what we really need here is some better nomenclature than Max, Med, Min and some statements in the Manual about using the sliders to the maximum, not just in the positive area.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com

[greenmorpher]

Actually, I'm looking at the results of the Maximum and Minimum filters in positive percentage, and I'm reminded of a P'shop filter (or is it a freestanding program?) that helps correct camera shake (yes, it still exists!).

Look how those images are apparently displaced. If we could control the direction of that (that's what you can do in the program I'm referring to), perhaps we could correct camera shake/subject movement to some extent.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[bkh]

One trick you might want to try, to give your images that little bit of extra "pop", is something that was available in Paint Shop Pro as their "Clarify" filter. ... PhotoSlop badly missed having this tool ... [It] is the very same as PhotoLine's "Filter > Other > Median" filter, but applied with negative intensity values. ... PSP's version would often badly over-apply this effect with its one-size-fits-all algorithm. The one in PhotoLine gives you precise control so your image never looks over-worked or muddy, but still gives it that bit of vibrancy and "pop" to make an otherwise flat image stand-out. ... Just don't over-apply it, which is easy to do.

And there's the nomenclature question again -- PSP's "Clarify" tells the user something -- not necessarily the best message, but it is at least user oriented.

"Clarify" tells me nothing. To me, it seems one of those obscure (pun intended) filters which claim to improve "something" but don't even care to tell me what they do. In fact, if it's like the median filter with negative values, then it basically sharpens the image. The idea would be similar to "Unsharp mask", which is the same as Gaussian blur with negative intensity, while "median" is just another variant of blurring which can likewise be used for sharpening.

PL's "Median" is an engineer's description which means nothing to the users except that it's between "Maximum" and "Minimum". And what's the difference between all three? From the Manual, I can't really see what the difference is. And there is NO mention of going into negative.

Ok, the manual gives the definitions of the three filters and states their intended purpose (remove bad pixels). I personally don't really miss an example of a dead pixel changing colours here.
Btw. "Median" is a common statistical term, describing one measure of "average" and "Median FIlter" is the commonly accepted filter name.

Experimentation suggests that "Maximum" goes for the higher end of the curve, "Median" treats both highlights and shadows equally, and "Minimum" goes for the lower end of the curve, the shadows.

Well, that's what's to be expected from the definitions in the manual, anyway.

Now -- Kooee says using negative values in Median gives 'pop' to pix. And then what about the positive end of that (those) filter(s)? We have serious noise reduction in Median, but what do we make of Maximum and Minimum?

Noise reduction, as the manual says.

But what we really need here is some better nomenclature than Max, Med, Min and some statements in the Manual about using the sliders to the maximum, not just in the positive area.

Please keep the names! These are the well-established names, they tell you what the filters do -- don't replace them by yet another PL idiosyncrasy.

Negative slider values are explained elsewhere in the manual, so adding a reference to the general description of the dialog layout probably wouldn't hurt, especially in the online manual.

I don't see that a manual can possibly cover all "artistic" effects that can be achieved with such a filter, without getting hopelessly out of bound. And one would expect just too much from the authors to foresee all of its uses. It is a nice feature that PL often allows you to go beyond the "sensible" slider range of 0 … 100%, but in my opinion, this is intended for your own experimentation. And there is the forum to publish your findings.

If "Median" really gives good results with negative values, and the outcome differs significantly from unsharp masking (which I tend to doubt), then one might think of suggesting this as another sharpening tool. In this way, it would, at least, have a chance to be found and used by those people who don't read a manual from beginning to end (I am afraid this is the majority of users, and I must admit that I am one of them …).

Cheers,

Burkhard.

[Hoogo]

If "Median" really gives good results with negative values, and the outcome differs significantly from unsharp masking (which I tend to doubt)...

Mediuan and blur behave different with neagtive values, but I find it hard to put it in words. For positive values its obvious: Median tends to keep edges and destroys small details. With negative values its something like sharpening fine details, but keeping hands of big edges. Maybe someone will find a use for it (I mean for small radius)?

[Rick]

One trick you might want to try, to give your images that little bit of extra "pop",.....

Thanks, Koyaanis, great tip!

[greenmorpher]

Hiya Burkhardt

If you think "Median" tells you what a filter does, that's your privilege! And it does NOT mean "average" either. It IS a little closer to a meaning than Maximum and Minimum are.

As for your other statements, maybe the manual is a bit different in German. Certainly in English, the description:

The Median filter is used to eliminate isolated, wrong pixels. This way it is possible to “clean” images that are a bit noisy. Colored areas become more uniform.

... does not shout "noise reduction filter" to me. It makes the noise reduction sound like a by-product of dealing with a few wayward pixels.

Further, as my examples and your own testing will show, the apparent effects of these three things is a bit different.

Also I believe there is an error in the manual's description of what the Maximum/Minimum do -- is each pixel replaced by the neighbour with the lowest gray or color value in both cases? Should they really be called High and Low?

And as I said, the Manual says nothing about what happens in the negative end using these filters. It SHOULD mention right there, where it is explaining the filters, that the negative end increases sharpness and noise. If the negative end is explained elsewhere, I have no idea where. By the way, the manual says Maximum lightens the image -- yes, it does when it is in positive territory. But apply negative percentage and it darkens the image. Vice versa for Minimum.

But why not call the three together "Noise/Sharpness Filters". Three sliders in one panel, the upper (positive) end "Reduce Noise/Sharpness" and the lower end "Increase Noise/Sharpness". Or something.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[Hoogo]

I disagree.
Minimum/Maximum/Median are the correct names for those filters,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_algorithm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_filter

My old PSP calls them Median and Deepen/Expand, if I translate it correctly, and I don't like that names.

Here's a zoomed screenshot what the filters do with radius=1 and 100%
For each pixel and each channel do:
-for radius=1 you create a square 1 pixel into each direction, so the square contains 9 pixels here.
-Find the highest value of the red, green and blue channel within these 9 pixels.
-Store that value as the result.

See the interesting result at the pixels at the edges.

And negative values do the same as anywhere else in PL. +100% is the correctly calculated result, 0% is the original value. Everything else is an interpolated or extrapolated value. As far as I can see only the layermode dissolve is an exception.

Who shall know what intersting uses one can find for theses filters and values? Median is often mentioned with noise reduction, but nobody ever talked about an extra "pop".
Typical tip for this extra "pop" was always to sharpen with very high radius and small value. That's the same as using blur with negative values. And it took quite a long while for someone to find out that median is the better blur for this purpose.
And that min/max with neagtive values seem to improve shaked pictures is a new invention to me.

[bkh]

Typical tip for this extra "pop" was always to sharpen with very high radius and small value. That's the same as using blur with negative values.

Effectively, what you get here is a possibility for increasing local contrast. It's a fast way, but it's not too precise, the problem being high contrast transitions.

And it took quite a long while for someone to find out that median is the better blur for this purpose.

I am still not convinced that Median is better in general. There is one advantage of Median, namely that it preserves straight edges, so that at negative values, these edges do not get sharpened. On the other hand, it seems to add more artifacts at high contrast curves/corners.

Thinking about it, Adaptive Soften with negative intensity values might be worth a try for that purpse … (This is different from Adaptive Sharpen.)

The easiest way to see the difference at edges and corners is to draw a grey rectangle on a white background, and to try the filters with similar radii, adjusting the intensity.

And that min/max with neagtive values seem to improve shaked pictures is a new invention to me.

Imo., this is just a resemblance of the artifacts. I don't think it's worth pursuing this further. I'd rather try motion blur with a negative intensity, maybe on a slightly offset copy, but afaik, removing motion blur isn't that simple …

Cheers,

Burkhard.

[greenmorpher]

In both the Maximum and Minimum cases in my examples, there is like a motion blur in the image. I suggested that if this could be controlled in direction, it could be used to counter blur resulting from camera jitter.

I mentioned a program that did this. Here it is at the page dealing specifically with camera movement blur: http://www.focusmagic.com/examplemotionblur.htm

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[greenmorpher]

For straight sharpening, compare Maximum at 1, -30% with adaptive sharpening.

Cheers, Geoff

[bkh]

In both the Maximum and Minimum cases in my examples, there is like a motion blur in the image. I suggested that if this could be controlled in direction, it could be used to counter blur resulting from camera jitter.

The "direction" effect stems from the fact that Min and Max use square areas to compute their results. So If you really want to experiment with motion blur removal, why don't you rotate the blurred image before applying the filter? As I said, I doubt that this will work, but there is no reason not to try yourself.

I mentioned a program that did this. Here it is at the page dealing specifically with camera movement blur: http://www.focusmagic.com/examplemotionblur.htm

I didn't say that it's impossible to improve motion blur. Rest assured that the program you are mentioned uses a much more sophisticated approach. Usually deconvolution using Fast Fourier transforms. As I said before, to undo a bit of motion blur, you can do the obvious and use PL's motion blur filter with negative values, but that doesn't work too well.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Loadus]

You can try this layerthing to have an almost Clarify effect: http://www.loadusfx.net/dc/enhance.jpg

You can do (an-almost-)Vibrancy using channel mixer:

R:
R = 150%
G = -25%
B = -25%

G:
R = -25%
G = 150%
B = -25%

B:
R = -25%
G = -25%
B = 150%

[akeller]

*

[greenmorpher]

Can you make it an action?

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[OldRadioGuy]

You can do (an-almost-)Vibrancy using channel mixer:

Can you make it an action?

Yes, you can. If the effect is too intense, apply it to a duplicate layer above and reduce the opacity until it looks right.

Bob