New Challenge: Colour Correction

[photoken]

The combination of all these things together may mean that viveza can be a one stop shop so to speak way of fixing this image. No leaning tower of Pisa layer stacks to manage. On the flip side using viveza is classic destructive editing, no tweaking after committing, only full undo.

Yes, the appeal of Viveza2 (and the rest of the Nik Collection) is that various controls such as Hue, Saturation, Color, Brightness, Contrast, etc., are all in one interface, and it's a quick matter to make the adjustments without first having to create adjustment layers (and their masks).

Unfortunately, as you've pointed out, that is also its downside. For me, it's crucial to have the ability to return to the image the next day with a fresh eye and make precise and subtle refinements to specific adjustments. That's why the PL layer stack is by far the best way to do serious work, at least for me. The key concept is "control" -- there's no substitute for the granularity of control offered by the PL layer stack.

Not saying the Nik filters don't have their place; in fact they're great for doing a fast "one-off" treatment for an image that you'll never want to mess with again. Also, the noise reduction filter is much better than the PL Noise Reduction adjustment, although I'm not sure yet that the Nik DeNoise gives better results than RawTherapee. Need to do some more testing on that....

What is particularly pleasing (at least to my eye) is the is the lack of mask boundary effects (viveza's masking is very gradient/transition orientated):

Not an issue, as far as I'm concerned. Since the PL adjustment layers each have their own layer mask, it's easy to paint along the specific part of the edge with a Gaussan Blur brush or any of the other PL tools to get exactly the type of transition you want in precisely the place you want it.

[cathodeRay]

I absolutely agree about the appeal of adjustment layers, and the ability to tweak with a fresh eye hours days or maybe even weeks later. There are also total file size on disc advantages (not trivial when working with large 16bit tifs), especially with PL's virtual layer copies in the mix. Sometimes I think the language isn't quite right: destructive editing is not really the right term for working on duplicate layers with a protected background, or a read only original file. The difference is more between a quick (and permanently) setting paint, and one that stays fluid for ever, were such a real world paint to exist. The other thing is that (unless settings are noted down - I don't see any option to save settings for later reuse) there is no history once the changes are committed: so if you don't make a note of what that brilliant tweak was as you do it, you will have to start from scratch again next time. Apparently the SWTMNBN does allow non-destructive or more accurately adjustable after the event Nik filter use through its Smart Filters, but PL doesn't have Smart Filters by that name or any other, so far as I know.

One thing that appealed to me about Viveza is the flexibility of the control points. Alt+click and drag to duplicate, another point here or there to lock down a colour, adjustable impact and size, and behind it a complex but viewable (so one can tweak it in real time) mask created on the fly. One noticeable limitation of the control points is that they are always circular, and have a gradient intensity declining as you move away from the point itself. In the example I posted earlier, I used two sky control points, and their 'sphere of influence' can be seen (and had I placed them higher I think the sky gradient mentioned earlier would have appeared, but of course I can't go back and tweak just that bit), ditto the rocks with several alt+click and drag copies (I did say it was a quick example!). On the other hand, the control point on the ensign to make it red works well to my eyes.

What I find often happens is that at first a new technique plugin whatever wows with its potential, and then over time it's wow factor lessens as it's limitations become clearer. Much the same will probably happen with Viveza.

I used Viveza (and partially the other plugins, especially Color Efex) many years (actually since Google released it), but recently i found the PhotoLine built in tools more helpful and got finally more convenient results (for the things i took Viveza before, Color Efex is still nearly irreplaceable)

I'm interested to hear that having once upon a time used Viveza, you have now moved back to PL's in-built tools. We are I think all agreed that PL is wonderfully capable and flexible, but so far as I am aware there are no direct equivalent built in control points with their masking capabilities: instead, we have to create each mask manually? Or am I missing something?

cathodeRay

[brucet]

FWIW at first I though the Nik collection was great. But the more I use it the less I think I'll use it!
In Color Efects Pro I had to create a neutral preset so that I could always return to what I left, or stated, with. There seems to be no 'undo' short of deleting in history.

PL, PSP, PS etc all have far more flexibility. Flexibility is what I'm after.

regards

[Eurgail]

I'm interested to hear that having once upon a time used Viveza, you have now moved back to PL's in-built tools.

It was a bit different. I used Photoshop and Nik Filters firstly, where you have the tighter connection through the smart filter option, as you said, (and on the other hand the necessity to use it because of the little number of adjustment layers; i had to use smart objects nearly every time...). Then I switched to PhotoLine and couldn't use smart objects anymore, but a huge amount of working layers are available. So i tried (more and more) to substitute the few filters i used before for the built-in functions to have a preferably non-destructive editing. And so my use of Viveza got less and less and on some point i found the kind of imprecise work of Viveza (with its soft-blending way of working; for really exact editing a lot of U-Points are necessary) not really that much helpful anymore; the results didn't please me sometimes, so i went back to PhotoLine without change.
So, for me it is like: Really fast picture editing can be pretty good done in Viveza, but if you have a bit more time you can achieve better results with working layers and layer masks (plus the non-destructive workflow).

but so far as I am aware there are no direct equivalent built in control points with their masking capabilities: instead, we have to create each mask manually? Or am I missing something?

You are absolutely right: The U-Point technology is not available in PhotoLine (but the way it is integrated in Nik Filters cannot be implemented in a layer based image editor in my opinion) and some effects, that can be easily done with it, are difficult to recreate with the standard toolbox (but not impossible in the end and besides for this things Viveza can stay available ).

[Hoogo]

...but the way it is integrated in Nik Filters cannot be implemented in a layer based image editor in my opinion...

Just thinking...
What if there was an adjustment called "create simple mask", similar to "tool > select color". You could add that adjustment to layers, virtual layers and so on and then use the result as a layer mask?
OR:
Clipping layers and adjustment layers already have an attribute called "clipping". Today it contains the feather and an invert option. What if that was replaced by "simple mask"?

[Eurgail]

The problem is, the non-destrictive way of the U-Points don't allow layer stacking. The recognition of an U-Point sphere changes with any change of the layers beneath.

[Hoogo]

The problem is, the non-destrictive way of the U-Points don't allow layer stacking. The recognition of an U-Point sphere changes with any change of the layers beneath.

I don't see the problem, but I did not really test the Upoints. Lots of adjustments change with changes in the layers beneath, so the "simple mask" attribute could change, too. And it's not about copying the Upoints. These are one part user interface, one part (simple?) algorithm to automatically create a mask. A few parameters could already be useful: One or two colors like "select color", multiplying with a gradient, maybe a little optional blur, that could even be calculated quickly. It could replace the normal mask for adjustments, or be an additional mask.

Whatever, just thinking...

[Eurgail]

You are absolutely right. It's a pretty good gedankenexperiment.
Perhaps "smart masks" could be useful. I only had doubts because i thougt of cases like: You have trees and a sky and changes the color of the leaves a bit from a more yellow green to a blue green and so the "smart mask" of the layer above, that should darken the sky, now darkens the trees partially, too. Perhaps a cool effect, perhaps not.
That was the problem i often had with Viveza: It changed more than i wanted. On the other hand, sometimes this was exactly what i wanted. And every time only with the original image as mask reference...
Both has its right to exist... (Don't want to talk falsly bad about this really strong plugin! )

[Martin Huber]

The problem is, the non-destrictive way of the U-Points don't allow layer stacking. The recognition of an U-Point sphere changes with any change of the layers beneath.

An U-point seems to be a mixture of a Color Filter with a fix tolerance for the background and a clipping mask (defined by a point and a radius). I currently don't know exactly how the radius affects the clipping mask, because even with a small radius the whole picture is modified. The radius seems to modify just the strength relative to the distance.

Martin

[Eurgail]

Seems to be a pretty good description. The problem i saw is, that the clipping mask automatically changes. So when the contrast between objects becomes modified, the mask would change. And that's partially unpredictable in use, isn't it?
Can you imagine, to create such a function; perhaps as a layer property?
I can't imagine how this could done as normal layer mask and stay non-destructive.

[cathodeRay]

A couple of points/observations, and I'm probably batting way above my ability/understanding here:

(1) U-Points/Smart Control Points: If in Viveza you add some control points, toggle show/hide selection for all control points (button top RH of control point list) to show, you get to see the selections or masks depending on what you want to call them (as a greyscale mask), and can then see how adjusting the settings affects the mask. While this doesn't reveal how Viveza is doing what it does, it does reveal what it does, in real time, which may provide clues as to how it does it.

(2) Smart Objects/Filters: I don't have the SWTMNBN but it seems to me that PL has a similar thing in the 'Create Adjustment Layer' button in the hard/destructive tool filter dialogs: in other words what would have been a once only edit becomes available for readjustment. At the moment, external filters/plugins do not have the 'Create Adjustment Layer' button (so far as I know/have ever seen), but if they did, and I've no idea how practical a suggestion this is, given most/all plugins open their own dialogs, so I guess the implementation would have to be done some other way, then in effect PL would have smart filters (though PL would naturally call them something else). Maybe the 'committed' plugin layer could have a right click option to make it an adjustment layer? This would mean that plugins like Viveza could be used if not non-destructively, then at least in a way that meant any settings could be tweaked/readjusted at a later time, avoiding the you only have one (destructive) bite of the cherry situation these plugins currently provide.

cathodeRay

[Eurgail]

(2) Smart Objects/Filters:[...]

This is theoretically a good idea, but practically external plugins often do more extensive calculations, and so i doesn't work very well for example to change an adjustment layer beneath such a filter layer or simpler to draw with a brush there. Real-time editing cannot be done here, i think.
Just remember the time Color Efex needs to calculate a normal sized image.

You can test such a behavior in Xara or Illustrator (or Photoshop, too? I don't remember). When there a more complex filter is added to an object, normal working (resizing, rotating etc.) is simply impossible. They made a kind of "temporal fixed layer" option (that prevents recalculations) in Xara to correct this... But both are vector editing programs, that don't allow to edit the filling by a brush and if i remember correctly, Illustrator let's you edit the shape and so and recalculates when the operation has finished first; so only quasi-real-time here.
In my experience, for a pixel editing software, the use of a kind of a closed "smart object" is the better way, but remains a limited workaround in the end.
Nevertheless i would appreciate something like a "smart object" function in PhotoLine.

P.S.: Perhaps there could be an option then, where one can change between the "Xara-fixed-layer"-option and the quasi-real-time of Illustrator for this object.

[photoken]

cathodeRay,

Your suggestion for applying a plugin's effect as an adjustment layer only addresses part of the problem. Although such an adjustment layer would allow modifying its gross properties (such as opacity and blend mode), it won't allow modifying the parameters used by the plugin.

Plugins like the Nik Collection or the KPT Collection don't store the parameters they used in the filter's effect itself -- they simply take whatever pixels are passed to the filter and modify those pixels.

Even if one of those filter's effects was saved in PL as an adjustment layer, re-opening that adjustment layer in the plugin would simply treat the modified pixels as the starting point again.

[Hoogo]

...Plugins like the Nik Collection or the KPT Collection don't store the parameters they used in the filter's effect itself -- they simply take whatever pixels are passed to the filter and modify those pixels.

Even if one of those filter's effects was saved in PL as an adjustment layer, re-opening that adjustment layer in the plugin would simply treat the modified pixels as the starting point again.

Not sure... Afaik there are plugins that work as smart filters in PS, but I haven't seen that in action. I guess that PS offers to store the properties of the plugin, and the plugin can retrieve them when it starts again. Some kind of addition to the interface of the plugins, but I guess that this is done in a way that makes it hard for other programs to use it.

[photoken]

I thought it's about time I posted the summation of my efforts with this image, including all the refinements done at various times over the last couple of days:

colour restoration 02d.jpg

I did some work to refine the masking at the tree/sky boundary, brought the top half of the spinnaker into balance with the rest of the image, and adjusted the overall colours and gamma.

Most of the work involved the trees. The more I looked at previous efforts, the more I realized that I did not like a strong yellow bias in the greens. That might be appropriate at sunset, but not when the sun is higher, as it is in this photo. So, I brought the greens to a more blueish shade of green. The trees at the far left were problematic -- it seems like the fading in that area affected the colours differently from the rest of the image, and it took a couple of extra adjustment layers to get a more even shade of green across them.

All in all, this result is not too shabby.... I'm happy with it.