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[OM] Re: USM test re PWP/PS is up

Subject: [OM] Re: USM test re PWP/PS is up
From: Tris Schuler <tristanjohn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 19:49:47 -0800
It isn't the image appearance as a whole that the test wants to address but 
the inherent deficiencies in the PWP shotgun approach (basically the same 
as everyone else's except for Miranda's PS action) to so-called 
edge-enhancement technology. It's because of this approach that the 
background noise I point out occurs.

I agree regarding radius. I was going to point this out in some detail, 
even offer yet another example of PWP at work with different settings for 
radius and threshold, but then considered it somewhat off the topic--I 
might still go back and add something more, though, or incorporate than in 
yet another USM test.

A few years ago when I did all this stuff manually in PS I'd use channels 
and probably make two passes at different settings, depending on  the 
image--just playing it by ear, really. Then I read about Miranda's work and 
tried one of his first sharpening utilities (I believe it was 8-bit then 
for the public-domain version). I soon discovered his technique was very 
much more involved and sophisticated than what I'd been up to and simply 
switched over. It wasn't perfect, though, and sometimes I'd go back to my 
old ways if I didn't like the look. Nowadays the look is so good to my eye 
that I'd feel like a chump to waste time trying to do Miranda better when I 
know in fact that I cannot--and even if I could it would consume untold time.

With his IS action he's finally hit the nail squarely for just about any 
problem a photographer will run up against. Great effect with virtually no 
noise anywhere.

So, the test is to demonstrate not only the sum effect but point out _why_ 
the mainstream USM filters (everyone's not just PWP's) are bound to do 
inferior work. What anyone in particular "likes" or "prefers" with regard 
to appearance is nothing I care to get into an argument over. That's too 
subjective.

PWP probably ought to be afforded an updated tutorial. But for my purposes 
it was sufficient to see what was going on. Do you know how much different 
the full program is from the demo?

The software's not all bad but I believe a person would be better 
off  buying PSP v8 for about the same price or just a few dollars more, 
whatever it's going for these days (haven't kept up with it).

In my view, the best solution is to learn to use PS. It does have a steep 
learning curve in some respects because of its great detail and scope, but 
the power is there and the third-party support is orders of magnitude 
greater. Tough to beat that package. The only drawback to PS that I'm aware 
of (practically speaking) is its cost. And I'd guess Adobe's market share 
would triple within a year if the company changed its pricing policies.

But that's not my concern.

If you're not familiar with Miranda's actions check them out. He has a few 
and everything I've tried works pretty good. I especially find his 
shadow-recovery action to be useful at times. I used to spend hours at that 
work with some of my night shots. With his program it doesn't take a second 
and the results are great.

When it comes to the potential of PS he's a clever man.

Tris


At 08:16 AM 2/7/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>The problem with your example is choosing 3 as the radius ala the
>tutorial which apparently needs to be updated.  The default radius in PW
>used to be 3 but was changed some time ago to 2.  Simply dropping the
>radius down to 2 gets rid of all the garishness but doesn't quite equal
>the Fred Miranda plug-in example with PS.
>
>However, using your version of the unsharpened image taken directly from
>your page and passing it through PWP's new (with version 3.5) advanced
>sharpen function with parameters = radius 1.5 and sharpen amount = 93%
>yields, IMHO, a better image than the Fred Miranda one.
>
>Case not proved yet with this example.
>
>Chuck Norcutt


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