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raven
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Digital manipulation of images
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Apr 6 05:17 UTC 1995 |
This is the item to discuss digital manipulation of phtographic images.
Examples might include, what is your favorite photoshop filter, what projects
are you working on, what refernces do you find helpful?
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| 119 responses total. |
mcpoz
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response 1 of 119:
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Apr 8 01:43 UTC 1995 |
This is really interesting to me, but I know ZERO about it. I am considering
spending some hard earned cash to play around with digital photos in general.
I hope we get some informed people to start a healthy discussion here.
Thanks.
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zagman
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response 2 of 119:
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Apr 27 14:27 UTC 1995 |
I am interested in purchasing one of the software programs to change/modify
the photo image from disc. Could this technology make the darkroom obsolete?
If the poducts are half as good as the adds claim, they just might. Is
anyone familiar with such software?
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rcurl
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response 3 of 119:
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Apr 27 20:21 UTC 1995 |
Popular Photography (magazine) has had a number of articles about this
recently, and many examples.
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mcpoz
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response 4 of 119:
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Apr 28 00:20 UTC 1995 |
I have no experience with digital manipulation, but Adobe Photoshop seems to
be most frequently mentioned. Another thing to consider is the RAM level
of your computer. Again, I am not experienced, but I think you need 16 M and
perhaps as much as 32 M. Anyone else?
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mwarner
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response 5 of 119:
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Jun 27 21:29 UTC 1995 |
I'm considering buying a Microtek 35T slide scanner, which comes bundled
with Photoshop LE (limited edition). It offers 8 bit times 3 passes
scanning for color. The difference between this and a typical flatbed
scanner is a higher optical resolution: more dots per inch. BTW, this
requires 8 Meg to run (which I have :) ). This unit seems about the same
in optical quality as a Polaroid model costing around 2X as much which
features faster scanning. I wonder if anyone in this cf has any
experience with these types of scanners. The 8 bit models run from $950
to $2,000, while fancy 10 or 12 bit models now being advertised go for
upwards of $2,500 to $6,000. As I am mostly interested in an archive of
of files I can use via a browser like Netscape, and not for a Nth degree
quality presentation, I won't be considering the top end models...
Maybe this item should be linked to one of the computer cfs so we can
learn something from some of the users of this sort of hardware that
might not be on the photo cf.
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mcpoz
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response 6 of 119:
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Jun 28 00:50 UTC 1995 |
I have droped an e-mail note to the fw's of the micro cf - (Omni & Jshafer)
asking them if they think it is appropriate to link, and if so to go ahead.
We'll see!
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ajax
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response 7 of 119:
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Jun 29 16:38 UTC 1995 |
I use Photoshop on my Mac...it's a great program, though for basic
functions (contrast/brightness/hue/saturation adjustment) there are
cheaper/free programs. It's also an incredible memory hog...I run it
with just 8 megs of RAM (half of which is used for the operating
system), which makes things darned slow, but even with 16 megs it's
pokey. Depends on image size too...Adobe offers some rule of thumb,
like you ought to have 8 megs plus two or three times as much RAM as
the image size, or something like that.
I'm not too familiar with darkrooms, but from what I've seen, if you
have an okayish print, you can scan it and run software to do anything
you'd do in a darkroom. Though the resolution on the computer is
usually lower, and converting the image to hard copy, with screen &
printer colors synched, is an art unto itself. On the other hand, it
wouldn't surprise me to see film pretty obsolete in a couple decades.
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mcpoz
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response 8 of 119:
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Jun 30 01:16 UTC 1995 |
Can you burn and dodge on a computer? (Selectively over or under expose?)
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mwarner
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response 9 of 119:
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Jun 30 03:03 UTC 1995 |
one pixel at a time....
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ajax
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response 10 of 119:
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Jun 30 15:17 UTC 1995 |
I'm not sure of the exact effect you want, but you can select
a subsection of an image, and apply a transformation on it
(brightness adjustment would be similar to under/over-expose).
Normal retouching of part of a picture this way is quite easy.
You could also easily make a section redder, sharper, or blurrier.
If you're trying to make neon-like glows around parts of the
image, it's a bit trickier, but you can do that too.
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helmke
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response 11 of 119:
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Jun 30 21:08 UTC 1995 |
The big problem is reproducing in the digital realm the effect known as "the
magic of film". If you have ever seen a "making of" about a movie and all
the explosions look super-cheesy, it is because the special is on video tape
vs. film.
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srw
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response 12 of 119:
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Jul 2 04:56 UTC 1995 |
Yes you can burn and dodge in photoshop (3.0). Select the "toning tool"
it looks like a lollipop. Double click it to set options (and brush
size/shape). It also offers a "sponge" option. I'll have to go get the
manual to figure out what that does.
Photoshop is demanding on your hardware, but if you feed it enough iron,
and ram, it works really well.
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mcpoz
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response 13 of 119:
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Jul 2 11:02 UTC 1995 |
I currently don't have enough power to run Photoshop. If I get 8 meg ram to
add to my 486 dx would that do it? Do I need anything else like a Graphics
accelerator card (whatever that does)? Finally, if I don't invest in a super
snazzy color printer, can I go to any place in AA (Kinko's) and have the files
printed from a disk?
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srw
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response 14 of 119:
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Jul 2 15:53 UTC 1995 |
I am only familiar with the Mac ports of Photoshop. THe original port,
requires a 68020 or better MC68k processor and requires 6MB of
application memory. For a 68K Mac running System 7, 8MB would be a squeeze,
but you could do it.
For the PowerMac version, it requires a PPC601 and 11MB application
memory. A 16MB system would be required.
For the 386/486 PC version, I don't have any literature. My guess is
that 8MB Ram would be inadequate, although Rob Argy says he can do it.
I am not familiar with Photoshop on this architecture, as I said,
so I'm only guessing. 16MB ought to be enough I would think, unless
you were running Windows NT.
Photoshop includes its own virtual memory implementation, so if you
are willing to wait while it swaps images in memory, it can do a lot
more than you might think with less memory. I have gotten fed up
with waiting and added more RAM to my system, though. I don't
recommend challenging Photoshop's VM by running it in a small space unless
you just can't afford more.
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ajax
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response 15 of 119:
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Jul 2 20:45 UTC 1995 |
Actually, I run PS on my Mac with 8MB of RAM, though I'm not sure if
I need virtual memory for that. I prefer PS 2.5.2 to PS 3.0 for most
things because it's quite a bit faster. A friend of mine uses a PowerPC
Mac with 8MB RAM with PS 3.0 a lot, but it is excruciatingly slow, and
I know it uses virtual memory.
The downtown AA Kinko's has the best publicly usable computer equipment
I've seen. They have a nice new Apple color postscript printer, though
it's $2/page, and an HP black & white printer, and perhaps some others.
Photoshop is available at least on their Macs, and they can read PC disks
if they don't have it installed on their PCs. They also have an Apple
OneScanner on one Mac ($20/hr to use it), or they can scan images for you
on either platform for $10/scan.
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mcpoz
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response 16 of 119:
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Jul 3 00:50 UTC 1995 |
Thanks. I guess if I decide to go for it, it'l have to be 16meg (ouch).
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srw
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response 17 of 119:
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Jul 3 05:37 UTC 1995 |
A PowerPC Mac with 8MB is going to be very slow. I have my PPC Mac
set to give Photoshop 3.0 it's 11MB suggested. It works great!
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mwarner
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response 18 of 119:
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Jul 3 05:43 UTC 1995 |
There is also something called "Ram Doubler" which is a background
application to double your ram via various economies, with disk swapping
as a last alternative. It is supposed to work much better than virtual
ram in terms of not slowing down a system. I'm not familiar with how well
it would work with a real hog like Photoshop. I also understand that it
works best when you are starting with 8 or more meg, but will also work
with a minimum of 4 meg. I have it installed on my 8 meg Mac, giving me
an apparent 16 meg of ram. I haven't put it to a serious test yet,
though. IT is available for both Mac and Windows for about $55.
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ajax
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response 19 of 119:
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Jul 3 23:07 UTC 1995 |
Another alternative is to get something other than Photoshop! HSC
(publishers of Kai's Power Tools) recently released a competitor, with
one of its main claims to fame being *speed*...it allegedly edits half
gig images faster than PS can edit half meg images. Quark is also
coming out with a competitive product, which is supposed to be more
speed-oriented than PS. I'm not totally clear on the details, but
both sound like they're more into storing images and modifications to
the images, giving a speed boost over PS's approach of changing each
affected pixel of an image as its modified, even if it's off-screen or
too small to see on screen. Apple also publishes an intro-level
image-editing package for around $100 that handles the basics.
I'm thinking of popping $100 for a new 3d graphics package that
models the human body. It looks like a fun tool to play with. Not
sure if I'll need something else to render the wireframes though.
Can anyone recommend a cheap-but-decent ($100 or less) general-purpose
3d package for the Mac? Seems like the good ones are $500 or more.
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srw
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response 20 of 119:
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Jul 4 05:30 UTC 1995 |
I strongly recommend Ray Dream Designer. It is not under $100, but it is
within reach at about $250. I like how it does solid and surface textures,
and text, especially (bevelled 3-d letters, for example). Relatively
fast rendering, too. No animation (I can live without it).
Modeling is pretty good too, but it doesn't allow you to edit a
surface point-by-point once you have constructed it, like the really
expensive packages can. I think it's a great bargain, anyway.
Or get POV (shareware) for PC. It's much more limited with textures
and text, but less money. Not for my taste, though.
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mwarner
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response 21 of 119:
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Jul 10 15:12 UTC 1995 |
I bought a Microtek ScanMaker II, which works very nicely. I'm not really
interested in creating 1G images, but that's what it would take to make a
decent size, high resolution color image. Luckily, images scanned at
fairly low resolution look great, too. (a newspaper image is only about
80 dpi), and besides who needs millions of colors when your hardware is
blind to all that resolution. For compiling a fairly good collection of
images from photos and documents this seems to work well. You *can*
create nice looking color images for <100K, with trial and error. I
usually make a "rich" scan (2-4 meg) and then knock it down, paring away a
little quality and a lot of memory. Some types of pictures look great in
16 colors, 16 grey scale or even straight B or W.
One buggy problem I've been getting seems to be related to memory
allocation on my Mac. I have enough memory to run the software (Color It!
with a Photoshop plug-in for scanning) but I have started to get "not enough
memory" errors *on other programs* after using the scanner. This has me
puzzled because a check of available memory shows I am using only a
fraction and should not be running into any walls. I have virtual memory
turned of, but am using Ram Doubler. The problem persists whether RD is
switched on or off. Eventually the problem clears up, but I have not been
able to keep it from returning or decide exactly what the cause is.
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ajax
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response 22 of 119:
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Jul 10 15:41 UTC 1995 |
Have you tried removing RAM Doubler from your system folder, as
opposed to clicking the "off button?" Weird problem...I think every
Mac has a couple unique oddities like that :).
I heard that the human eye can only consciously discern about 4,000
different colors. I'm not sure I believe that, but if true, it seems
the "millions of colors" used in high quality images is either wasted
on us or maybe works at a subconscious level. If my computer could
display millions of colors, I'd be curious to compare an image using
that with an image converted to 4,000 colors, to see if I could detect
any difference. I can definitely see the loss when I go to 256 colors.
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mwarner
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response 23 of 119:
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Jul 10 17:37 UTC 1995 |
I don't think it's related to the doubler, but I might try physically
removing it. I can debug the bug by using the "get info" menu and
tweaking up the preferred memory on the balking program. The strange
thing is that it's a one time solution and not a fix. The program runs
fine even if I turn around and lower the memory allocation... until the
next "blockage" occurs. And leaving an increased memory allocation won't
prevent the bug from its return.
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rcurl
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response 24 of 119:
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Jul 10 21:50 UTC 1995 |
Does the problem persist after rebooting (as we discussed f2f)? RAM
fragmentation could persist after running several applications
simultaneously.
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