Photo-Enhancement Tools

[joroho]

I've been trying a program by MediaChance, the maker of RealDraw Pro, called DCE AutoEnhance. It's for taking photos from digital cameras and enhancing them by applying various adjustments to brightness, contrast, sharpness, noise removal, etc. It seems to work well, but I have nothing to compare it to. Anybody know of a comparable program I can try?

.joroho.

[alexbozhenov]

... but I think PhotoShop have all you need.
Some manipulations with Levels and maybe a couple plug-ins... thats all.

alexander
albodesign@narod.ru
ALBO Design

[joroho]

I was all set to just stick with DCE, and I already have Corel PhotoPaint 9, but I think I'll take a look at PhotoImpact.

Thanks for your feedback.

.joroho.

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Hi guys... was wandering around TG and thought i'd pop into this thread.

I can't provide much in the way of app suggestions here, that's already been covered quite well.

But to add to what Gauss & Gidgit are "discussing"... i'd just like to first say... Gauss, everyone has their own prefs, as we've all heard before many times i'm sure, to each his own. And... use whatever works for ya.

Even though i've been using PS for a lot of years now, i'll be the first to speak about what i feel are its short-comings & limitations -- of which it has a few. But doesn't every program these days!?

As for comparing PI to PS and vice versa, that's not a fair fight IMO. Both those apps began as something which they are not today. They were both much weaker apps only a few years ago, and have gone in different directions today with respects to what types of abilities they're strong/weak in. Apples to oranges i believe the saying goes.

Gidgit...
For a 'perspective' distortion like in your example photo, it takes but a second to fix in PS. Just turn your grid on, and use the "Transform>Perspective" tool, til things line up visually in the photo. Pretty much equivilant to opening a filter and tweaking a slider.
Other types of distortions in photos however are more complex to correct. Perspective distortion appears to be the easiest to fix. But i think that would be the case for any program used, not just PI & PS.

Anywho... my 2 cents.

[gidgit]

Yes, PS is a durn good app indeed, but... for photo tweaking I would be more inclined to go with PhotoImpact...

The latest version 8 of PI has a few new tools designed specifically with the photographer in mind...

Her's a shot showing the new Lens Distortion tool at work in PhotoImpact... also gives you a look at the PI user interface... anyways, there is no easier method that I know of to fix thos edge distorted photo's...

If you have any questions regarding PhotoImpact and how to get up and running with it please post your questions in the PhotoImpact forum her at TG and someone will come along and try to accomodate your requests...



[This message was edited by gidgit on February 01, 2003 at 16:18.]

[Gaussian]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by gidgit:
Yes, PS is a durn good app indeed, but... for photo tweaking I would be more inclined to go with http://www.ulead.com/pi/runme.htm...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A perspective tool is added and suddenly Photoimpact is more suited for photo tweaking
Thanks for the laugh bud!
Photoshop has some weak points, but photo editing is definitely its strongest point

Don't get me wrong, Photoimpact is a truly marvelous product, but it's important that we provide the members on the board with the correct information

Even lens corrections can be done in Photoshop,
that is, in the hands of a user who knows how to use the program

This example took me 10 sec.

[gidgit]

Thanks for the link Jon... Will have a look a bit later on today... back to bed for this kid... Flu season is upon us

[houseofman]

I've used ThumbsPlus for quite a while and have come to like it.
www.cerious.com
--
Phillip

[gidgit]

Hi Mark...

Thanx for the further info on this "perspective"

Sounds like six of one, half dozen of the other...

So there ya have it folks... take your pick and get down to some funky Photo Editing...

[Bob C.]

Hi joroho:

I purchased a remarkable and inexpensive digital camera (<$50 us) that came with all kinds of incredible software, makes avi's & edits etc. called Arcsoft see the URL below:

http://www.arcsoft.com/software/index.html

But after loading the driver I usually use "aquire" in Corel's PhotoPaint which allows use of all of the tools there. You can do this with Irfanview as well.

Bob C.
PS the camera URL is here: http://www.sipixdigital.com/