Hello all.

Having fun!

Just over a week ago we had a camera club meeting with a fellah called Derek Doar who showed some excellent prints of colour shots converted to B & W  and his method of conversion which involved PS Channel Mixer, what's more unlike other demo's he gives full details of his method on his web site.      http://www.ddimages.co.uk/

At the time I thought - I wonder if we can do that in QUltimate and then we get this Sel Color update, so as instructed I have been having fun.


I have taken an image and processed normally.  Converted it to a tif.

Taken same image and converted to standard B & W (.3,.59,.11)

Taken original colour version and upped the red to 5.0 Saved it as a tiff with different file name

Loaded this tif version into QU and done a standard Sel Col B & W (.3,. etc)

Taken original again and done a red separation conversion (1.0,0,0)

There is a difference in the results.

The Red Channel 5.0 converted to standard B & W gives more punch to the grasses

The Red Separation is probably the best, this appears to give same punch to the grasses but also improves the sky.

I have posted the results to Zenfolio as this gives a better size for comparison.  I hope the link works, I have tested it and it does this end.
 
http://jeffmilan.zenfolio.com/p709125750/h6ddaeeeb#h6ddaeeeb

What do we think, have I wasted my time, this sel col I have no idea what I am doing!


 Jeff

 

Greetings folk,

Have I missed a change or is it still impossible to apply Smart Colour Boost to a batch of RAWs - rather than calling up each image and activating it by hand?

I realise that for fine tuning each image may benefit from one or more colour lines being altered from the SCB suggestion - but I'd have thought it's now pretty crazy not to use it on every image as a start point.

Tony

Following on from Fred:
I would certainly agree  
I've used Selective Color adjustments for some time but on an intermittent basis; the introduction of SCB has encouraged me to make more use of it and taught me to have a better understanding of the tool and what it does. The new click arrows make any additional adjustments very slick indeed, just what I needed - thanks Mike!  

One "additional" adjustment that has come to my notice is to make use of the "N" or neutral row. Previously I assumed it was a no-no especially as it's excluded from the SCB tick box dialogue. However that assumption was wrong.
Sometimes after using SCB I find it necessary to reduce the brightness a little and usually use a simple curve or the brightness control, not always ideal. What I now know is this can be done on Select Colour grid by lowering the Neutral row values a little. This has the effect of putting detail into bright areas of the image.
A simple example is attached, image names indicate SCB or not. Note the difference of detail in the bridge across the lake; SCB with a slightly reduced neutral row has done this. Sel Col can be a sort of one-stop-shop.
Terry

Hi Jeff,
No but - I think there's an easier way.
In addition to the Sel Col B&W pre-set, there is a re separation pre-set which will give a similar result, darker sky and lighter grass colours. You could have used the raw without any conversion to tiff.
Your experiments gave me an idea to use Sel Col to modify B&W images.
What I did was reduce the saturation to -100% to get a basic grey scale image. I then used Sel Col to modify various colours so that the B&W tones were modified accordingly. Eg. darker sky, lighter foliage etc. The Sel Col dropper registers the original image colours so you know which one to modify even though you are looking at a B&W image.
See attached images, file name is description. The Sel Col modified B&W is exaggerated so the effect shows up on a small image.
Is this the sort of thing your club lecturer was doing is PS with layers and stuff?
Terry

That's right and SCB is not a panacea for all images or even a batch of apparently similar images . I'm sure Mike would agree with that.
If I have a group of similar images as  often do with different exposures, focal plane etc. etc., I would choose a couple that were my favourites using either Intaview or the comparator and then apply & try any enhancements I thought necessary to those.
Terry

Tony... above is a quote from Terry.
It is right on point.
You have to separate in your mind the difference between Exposure correction, White Balance correction and Enhancing or customizing colors.
They are different.
There will never be an auto Smart Color Boost only because it is non applicable. Not all images, as a matter of fact, only selected image will benefit from SCB.
It is similar to DFS --USM.... 
It is a tool to sharpen images... Some get sharpened with a large radius and small strength. Some with small radius and larger strength.
Some (most) get a selective Tone Targeted sharpening.... color selected by eye dropper click on a small sample of pixels in a small area.
How would you batch apply sharpening to a run of images?
You just cannot do it and make any sense out of it.

Same with Smart color boost. It is an enhancement... not a Decode of a group af raw images...
You decide later if you need sharpening , or extra contrast or less contrast, or color boosting.

I doubt if I can explain it any better.
Can you pass along Queen Elizabeth's email address. ?  I will email a complimentary copy of Qimage Ultimate with a copy of the thread of these posts, and I'll bet, by sundown, she will popping out prints, some with SCB and some without!
Then she can explain it to you, perhaps? 

Fred

I think where we disagree is the statement that SCB "makes images better".  It doesn't.  It just makes them "different".  It is to be used on those (usually rare) occasions when you get a dull image that is a throw-away without adding some extra pop.  I've seen it used to make a cloudy shot less dull or maybe correct an occasional shot toward the sun that looks washed out.  I've yet to run into anyone who thinks all their images (or at least big batches) are dull and need some extra paint splashing.  In addition, SCB is not even a filter.  It is a Selective Color filter helper, as explained previously.  It helps you pick a selective color filter that gives you maximum color boost.  Because of the random nature of images, it needs adjustment probably 50% of the time which is why applying it in batch makes no more sense than applying something like content aware fill in batch: it is highly dependent on the image.

All that said, there is some work in the pipeline that will allow you to set a preference in raw options WRT how your raws appear: settings like "neutral" (the current setting) and new ones like "vivid" will be available.  That might be closer to what you are looking for.  Exposure, white balance, and fill in the raw refine are in no way similar to SCB because they do not vary by image.  If you apply a white balance in raw refine to multiple raws for example, it will take that one white balance and apply it to all in the batch: all of the raws must be shot in the exact same lighting for it to work.  So as already mentioned, there is nothing "smart" about applying raw refinements in batch because they are not adaptive like SCB (they don't change based on image content).

P.S.  I would caution anyone against applying things like SCB on the majority of your images.  There is a tendency to think "more saturation is better" or "more sharpening is better" when doing side-by-side comparisons that leads to images looking gaudy or overdone when viewed individually or when printed.  For example, you could apply extra saturation and a huge amount of sharpening (say radius 7, 200%) to a print and if you look at them side-by-side and you are only looking at saturation and sharpness, the "normal" print without the added saturation and sharpness may look dull sitting next to the modified print.  But by itself, the modified print looks terrible: garish, burned, and overcooked.  So don't be a victim to that, else you show up at our Thursday photographer's lunch with one of those prints that makes me say, "Sheesh... did you empty all your ink carts on that one print?" 

Mike