On Tue, Jan 24, 2012, at 09:56 PM, Moose wrote:
> 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.
Can't really argue with that as I think this is your MO. I've done it
both ways. Empirically, I am just impressed that the guy with the
parachute mostly lands on the bull's eye. Truth is, I am seriously
behind in my exposure to the tools that are available. Color management
and many other aspects of digital darkroom have moved along and I am
still doing things in old familiar ways. There are reasons for that --
my life is not as simplified as I might wish it, shall we say.
Sagelight could become something I become ultimately unsettled about.
For the moment, I am enjoying that period of bedazzlement which will be
brief enough I am sure.
> > ... 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.
Not trying to sell it. Haven't even bought it yet, but I think I shall.
> > 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.
Fuddy-duddiness loves company. :) Seriously, I feel traitorously
abandoned by Elements.
> 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.
I think one tendency is to over-go with IS because it seems like one
can, and more sometimes seems like it should be better. This is a
comment on my own experience and not what I presume yours to be. The
zero halo setting and light amounts is basically all I'm after and so
far I continue to be happy with the results. I'll take a look at Focus
Magic though.
> 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.
Web images are still toss offs to me. I should pay more attention.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Joel W.
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