On 1/21/2012 6:57 PM, Joel Wilcox wrote:
> Sagelight provides some options when passing a file through raw
> conversion. There is a kind of standard import, where the image is
> given some sort of modest auto-correct values and looks pretty good.
> Another option is to preserve highlights. Even if one accepts the
> standard import, there are reminders and a little interface to recover
> highlight detail. Another option is simply to import the file with full
> highlight recovery as the ruling factor.
I didn't much like that. Pick recovery amount and type and see what happens is
OK with a command line program like
DCRaw. With GUI, I much prefer the ability to preview what parameter changes do
live. ACR, unmasked with PS or built
into the LR interface, Bibble/Aftershot, Rawtherapee, Canon's DPP and others
manage to do it. Sagebrush needs to do it
too, to be really competitive as a Raw converter.
> ... In general, Sagelight has some powerful color tools. Images seem
> visually exciting without
> looking like Velveeta Gone Wrong.
>
> If one values this kind of thing, this is a pretty good editor.
I haven't done much with that yet, but it looks interesting.
> I've
> been photographing my wife's orchids a good bit of the day and running
> upstairs to the computer to test this and that. If I try to match
> ACR/Elements with Sagelight, I can get a pretty close match on the
> finished photograph, but the Sagelight version looks a little better to
> me. The interface is quite a bit more fun to use too. Sagelight has a
> great curves tool. I've had to resort to Elements to cope with Canaan
> raw files, and it is OK, but its curves tool is a joke. I realize that a
> curves tool is a bit like a kick starter on a motorcycle these days
Huh? Guess I'm more of an anachronism than I knew. I use it on nearly every
image.
> , but I learned to do so much with that tool. And why you can't do some things
> in 16 bit mode in Elements that you can do in my ancient copy of PS is
> beyond me
Marketing. The cheapie must always lag behind the expensive version.
> ...
>
> I whisk the image into PS for clean up and just sharpen while
> there because I've got Intellisharpen plugged into my copy of PS and
> just find that nothing works better for that task for me.
I use Intellisharpen much less since finding Focus Magic. Although smarter with
Unsharp Mask than I am, IS is still
using USM. And USM fundamentally just increases local contrast at edges. FM
uses deconvolution, which is actually
willing and able to tighten up focus. Less prone to halos and does a sometimes
amazing job with movement blur.
After some comparison testing, many images get a dose NR, followed by a dose of
FM, as the first steps of editing.
Virtually all post downsampling sharpening is FM. On a web size image, even
FM's minimum radius of one is too much,
usually way too much. That's what the opacity slider is for.
Un Focused Moose
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