|
admin
|
 |
« on: August 16, 2010, 10:50:52 PM » |
|
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-uv2010.108 08/16/10 Priority: Low v2010.108 includes further improvements and features for the tone targeted sharpening image editing filter plus a number of general stability improvements. Mike
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
jeffjessee
|
|
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2010, 05:16:52 PM » |
|
Mike-
Thanks for adding the RGB targeting feature to the Tone targeting.
(I had asked Mike if he could modify the tone targeting to work for one particular case, where I wanted to soften the skin tones a little to make skin look a little smoother, without softening other shades of red in the photo. I just tried the new RGB targeting on a photo of a girl with a dark red dress, and by using a minus value for sharpening strength, and setting the slider at 80 or 90, and selecting a medium skin tone with the eyedropper, I was able to blur the skin a little without blurring the red dress. It also works for positive values of sharpening. You could sharpen everything in the picture EXCEPT the skin tone, if the skin looked OK to start with, and you didn't want to sharpen the pores and hairs. I'm sure many people will find uses for this new way of targeting if they experiment. Often it would be helpful to sharpen one shade of a color without sharpening everything of that color.
It's great to have a programmer that listens to his customers. Listen up, PS, Mike saved me $600! )
Maybe it would be helpful if Mike described how RGB targeting worked, as compared to the previous Tone targeting. Discussing the differences with him helped me understand why Tone targeting did not do exactly what I wanted, but RGB targeting did.
Thanks,
Jeff Jessee
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
admin
|
|
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2010, 06:21:17 PM » |
|
Good idea Jeff. Understanding the "innards" does help, so I'll do my best for now in this short post. I can elaborate when I have more time.
Basically there are four ways to target:
Tone targeting: targets the selected tone OR everything except the selected tone. Tone is defined as the hue (color) and saturation. So if you select an area of skin, the skin "tones" will be included such that areas with similar color and saturation are included. Since "tone" doesn't care about brightness, you can select skin tones and that color will be targeted even if some parts are brighter and more well lit than other parts. By selecting "tone", you can click on a face and include all areas with similar color even if some are in shadows and some are in bright light.
RGB targeting: targets the selected RGB value or everything except the selected RGB value. Here, you can select a specific RGB range and include, for example, only bright yellows while not including dark yellow/brown. It also allows you to select light skin tones while not including dark red hair that, while technically the same "tone" as the skin, is much darker.
Saturated colors: targets saturated colors more and neutrals/grays not at all.
Neutrals: targets whites and grays and leaves out saturated colors.
Now, as to the slider, "Max" always gives you the "maximum effect" for whatever you are using.
Targeting: If you are targeting an RGB value for example, "max" gives you "maximum isolation" of the targeted value so only colors very close to those RGB values are included. As you move the slider to the left, more RGB values (more distant from the one selected) are included.
Targeting everything EXCEPT: If you are targeting everything EXCEPT the selected RGB value for example, "max" gives you "maximum exclusion" of the targeted value where "max" excludes a wide range of colors around the selected one. As you move left, fewer and fewer colors are excluded and the sharpening opens up more.
Hope this helps for now.
Regards,
Mike
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Keith Thompson
Newbie
Posts: 2
|
|
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2010, 07:52:18 PM » |
|
Hi Mike,
Regarding your new selection editing feature which involves selecting *tone* as one of the 4 ways it operates.
My Definition of Tone refers to the lightness or darkness of a color, rather than what the actual color is (e.g. cadmium red or Prussian blue).
I am not using Ultimate, at present, so cannot comment on your new feature other than that your explanation was at odds with my understanding. I have no idea how this affects your excellent software programming but coming from a lowly artist background these are the questions I ask myself to skilfully define the exact nature of any colour:-
What colour is that? (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple or Grey)
What Hue? (If the colour is Yellow, is it towards the Orange or the green)
What is its Chroma? (Brilliantly Saturated or Chromatically weak, Greyed)
What Tone is it? (How light or dark in relation to other tones. If on a scale to ten, White is Tone 1, Yellow might represent a Tone of 2)
Cheers,
Keith Thompson (Studio member)
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
admin
|
|
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2010, 11:12:24 PM » |
|
Regarding your new selection editing feature which involves selecting *tone* as one of the 4 ways it operates.
I'm admittedly not using the scientific definition of "tone". I believe to do so would confuse many people and would require a lot more explanation. "Tone targeting" as it is being used in Qimage Ultimate is most accurately described as "targeting all tones of the selected hue" (actually "shade" is the more syntactically correct term). But then you get people asking how you define "hue" or "what is the hue of a neutral color". It's just easier to have people select "target the selected tone", knowing it means that you are selecting a particular color and all other tones of that color. When people select skin, the software works as if they had just selected skin "tones" and so on. So it's not really a "tone" you are selecting... but rather you are going for all "tones" of what you selected. Maybe the option should just say "Target similar tones". Mike |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Keith Thompson
Newbie
Posts: 2
|
|
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2010, 05:53:26 AM » |
|
Thanks Mike for your reply,
I understand now it is just a labelling issue to simplify a procedure. BTW, in painting darker tones are indeed called shades and lighter tones are called tints. I visualise a a tone graded colour cylinder in my head whilst painting that can be sliced across at any point to reveal a standard colour wheel.
So I go around it to choose the most saturated colour, across it towards its complement to grey it or desaturate it, and down the cylinder to darken it.
Although many graphic software applications use the colour wheel, I am surprised that I have never found one which uses such a cylinder.
This brings me, full circle, as it would help folks understand & simplify the procedure.
Apologies for straying slightly off topic and thanks Mike for developing and providing a *simple* printing solution for me in Studio, all these years.
Cheers, Keith (Ireland)
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Terry-M
|
 |
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2010, 02:30:37 PM » |
|
Mike,
While on the subject of TTS & colour, would it be possible to give some information about the Saturated mode.
What constituted "saturated" in TTS selection, is it high RGB numbers in all channels or just one? How does the sharpening depend on the degree of saturation?
I find this mode quite useful but never quite know why it works well in an image that does not seem to have particularly saturated colours.
Terry
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
admin
|
|
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2010, 03:41:41 PM » |
|
Mike,
While on the subject of TTS & colour, would it be possible to give some information about the Saturated mode.
What constituted "saturated" in TTS selection, is it high RGB numbers in all channels or just one? How does the sharpening depend on the degree of saturation?
I find this mode quite useful but never quite know why it works well in an image that does not seem to have particularly saturated colours.
Terry
Saturation is basically the difference between the lowest RGB value and the highest. So 100,100,100 would have zero saturation and 0,255,0 would have maximum saturation. An RGB value of 150,150,160 would have very little saturation because there's only a 10/255 difference between channels. So in saturated colors mode, a pixel with 255,255,0 RGB would have 100% of the USM and a pixel with 64,64,64 would get no sharpening at all. The curves (for all values in between) is not linear but I won't reveal the actual details.  Mike |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Terry-M
|
|
« Reply #8 on: August 19, 2010, 03:48:58 PM » |
|
Saturation is basically the difference between the lowest RGB value and the highest. Thanks Mike for that explanation, it'll be a help when I check an image to decide on a good starting point for TTS. What happens at < 100% saturation is your magic  Terry |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
jeffjessee
|
|
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2010, 04:20:40 PM » |
|
Here's an example to show a case where RGB targeting works much better than "tone" targeting. I wanted to reduce the sharpness of the skin, so that the pores under the eye and some spots on the nose were not so prominent. Sharpening was set to 2, -200. (This is higher than I would use in practice, but just to make the differences show up better in a small attachment. The actual vaues to print a large image would probably be closer to 2, -120).
Left image is sharpening off, middle is Tone sharpening at 2, -200, slider at 80, and right is RGB sharpening at 2, -200, slider 80. Note that negative tone sharpening blurs the eyelashes and hair, but the RGB leaves them almost as sharp as the original.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Terry-M
|
|
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2010, 05:17:36 PM » |
|
Hi Jeff, Here's an example to show a case where RGB targeting works much better than "tone" targeting. I wanted to reduce the sharpness of the skin Thanks for sharing the TTS tip with us. Now, supposing you needed to add some sharpness to the eye too ....? Terry |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
jeffjessee
|
|
« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2010, 10:11:55 PM » |
|
Now, supposing you needed to add some sharpness to the eye too ....?
Terry
Yea, that would be nice. Only way I know now is to save the file to a different name, and used a different USM strategy on the new file. It would be great to be able to apply two different and distinct USM's to the same file, now that we have so many flavors of USM. Maybe evey two different sets of filter files, that are additive. In some cases, the Shadow noise filter will help smooth the skin, and then you can use USM for sharpening, but it doesn't always work--depends on the skin problem.
Jeff
Ignore the oversaturated color in my sample. I think I double-profiled by performing too many conversions in my attempts to get the file small enough to upload.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Terry-M
|
|
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2010, 10:56:33 PM » |
|
It would be great to be able to apply two different and distinct USM's to the same file, now that we have so many flavors of USM. That is what I was hinting at. I have done a double TTS by making a new image but I'm beginning to see potential for the double TTS, especially when one of them is to soften. I can also see potential for all sorts of other TT features, like contrast.  Terry |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
jeffjessee
|
|
« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2010, 11:07:08 PM » |
|
Yea, hope Mike isn't mad at me for suggesting this RGB feature. I think you are right, there are other USM targeting strategies that might be useful, too. And I know that several different USM's on an image would be very useful, particularly one plus and one minus, just don't know if it would be a bag of worms, programming-wise. But Mike usually can come up with a way to solve most any problem we come up with! Have faith He did the RGB targeting feature in one day! Jeff |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
rachlinent
Newbie
Posts: 26
|
|
« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2010, 04:54:15 PM » |
|
I would like to add my vote for multiple USM's to the same image.
Howard
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Qimage registration expired? New lifetime licenses are only $59.99!
