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Contrast Enhancement Evolution. From Alce to Next, to Shape

Contrast Enhancement Evolution. From Alce to Next, to Shape

SHAPE allowed us to add key functions that were difficult, if not impossible, to implement in NEXT. We designed SHAPE using NEXT as a starting point, and improve it in five areas.
1. Introducing the multiple contrast mode. 2. Fixing the halos issue. 3. Adding a sharpening slider. 4. Adding Color boost control. 5. Allowing full customization.

Frequency Separation Made Easy

Frequency Separation Made Easy

To put it as easily as possible, frequency separation is a Photoshop technique which separates the texture of an image from its shape creating two layers, one storing color and luminosity information and the other one, storing the detail. Activating a curve adjustment layer, restricted to operate on the high frequency layer, you can change the detail level of the image by steepening or flattening the curve. You will also be able to easily clone over defective parts with no visible side-effects.

Spatial Frequency Separation in Theory

Spatial Frequency Separation in Theory

Usually one encounters spatial frequency separation for the first time in the field of beauty retouch. To put it as easily as possible, it is a technique which separates the texture of an image from its shape, allowing the retoucher to easily clone over defective parts with no visible side-effects.

VitaminBW: a Steady Path to Black-and-White

VitaminBW: a Steady Path to Black-and-White

Black-and-white is pleasure and pain for any photographer – even those who don’t actually use it. About six months ago I stumbled into an interesting technique to convert a color image to B&W and wrote an article about it: it was Gorman-Holbert’s method. Such article spawned two more, one of which further expanded this technique.

ALCE and 360° panoramic images

ALCE and 360° panoramic images

Two suggestion for ALCE processing of equirectangular images to be used building 360 degree panoramas.   By Davide Barranca   Equirectangular images, the ones used to build those beautiful, immersive, 360 degrees panoramas, may require some extra attention...

In-a-Gamma-da-Vida

In-a-Gamma-da-Vida

A false profile (that is, a profile with a non-standard gamma value) can be expressed as pencil-drawn curves generated by Photoshop. While this has little practical relevance, it allows us to understand what assigning a false profile actually does to an image by simply inspecting the shape of a curve.

The False Profile – Multiply Technique

The False Profile – Multiply Technique

The False Profile – Multiply TechniqueAdvance techniques combining False Profile with Multiply Blend Mode in Photoshop: the False Profiles technique, the Multiply technique, Multiply + False Profile combined, mask options and more

Dan Margulis on Italy and RBG

Dan Margulis on Italy and RBG

The truth is that it is a land of love and great beauty, made all the more beautiful professionally by seeing the new and sophisticated imaging algorithms being developed by Davide with Marco Olivotto, and by seeing how Alessandro, Daniele Di Stanio, Tiziano Fruet and others have brought first-class color instruction into a country where it was rarely found previously.

Larry Lourcey on ALCE: New Way To Enhance Contrast

Larry Lourcey on ALCE: New Way To Enhance Contrast

ALCE2 is a deceptively easy tool that enhances the contrast of an image to really give it some punch. Unlike some filters that have hundreds of options and boxes to click – this one is simple: just one slider. You dial in the amount of effect you want and off it goes. Best of all, it records the setting you used – right in the layer name – so you can actually recreate the look later. This was a huge plus for me!

3F | The revolutionary professional scan system by Hasselblad

3F | The revolutionary professional scan system by Hasselblad

In 2000 Imacon, now Hasselblad, created a new proprietary format for the Flextight scanners, the Flexible File Format or fff. 3F has determined the biggest revolution in the field of original analog scanning since the introduction of the drum scanner. A 3F allows one to obtain a file similar to a raw file from analog original.

Notes on Sharpening

Notes on Sharpening

Sharpening with Gaussian and edge-aware blurring kernels; a new experimental approach on High-Radius Low-Amount sharpening; how to separately target edges and texture in the same high frequency range. Gaussian, Bilateral and Mixed pyramid decompositions, efficient platforms on the top of which new sharpening strategies can be developed.