RE: filmscanners: Photoshop 5 LE files darker than they look

["Oostrom, Jerry" <Jerry.Oostrom@Alcatel.nl>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Klein [SMTP:pklein@2alpha.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 5:40 AM
> To:   filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> Subject:      Re: filmscanners: Photoshop 5 LE files darker than they look
> 
> Or use a non-Adobe product.  It's tempting.  Anybody out there use other 
> programs.  Paint Shop Pro looks good, but doesn't handle 16-bit data. What
> 
> about Ulead PhotoImpact, Corel Photo-Paint, Micrographix Picture
> Publisher, 
> etc. ?
> 
        [Oostrom, Jerry]  I use Picture Window Pro which has windows color
management support (so you need Windows 98SE or 'higher'), does all(!!!)
edits in 16-bits etc. But its unsharp masking uses a minimum granularity of
at least 1 pixel (i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc.), which I sometimes find too coarse (In
PS I've seen the use of USM 0.3 pixel at 300% which for that image did
wonders). It has some other functions that I use too, like e.g. warping to
remove the effect of converging lines in architecture if you use a
wide-angle lense, lense barrel/pincushion distortion, lense focus-length
distortion correction, chromatic aberration correction (I have consumer
grade lenses), an easy gamma correction (if compared to PS). It also has a
lot of effects that I don't (know how to) use, but I really miss the magic
wand selection tool and 'select similar' function. It actually misses all
selection tools, or I don't know where to find them. It also misses or in my
version missed a way of saving the color profile in .png files, so I save
images with profile in either .tif or .jpg (100%quality at 4:4:4 sampling)
format. 

        As you can see this PWP program offers a lot but also restrains you
in other areas. So what I do is color correct saturation and b/w points with
curves in PWP in HSL or HSV mode (not in RGB mode)  and further remove color
casts with those pens that sample a number of pixels (don't know the name of
the pens, eye-sampler?) and then do the cloning / spotting in either PWP or
if I need the magic wand and fine unsharp mask I do it in a PSLE-like
application at 8 bits/color, then save again with profile in PWP (8
bits/color). (I.e. scan->PWP->PSLE->PWP, actually a bit too laborious,
because of little, but important things that I miss in PWP)

        You can find PWP plus downloadable 30-day demo at www.dl-c.com.