Evaluating Colour-Science Image Editor

troutstreaming

Hi all,

I saw the thread on Flea Market for Colour-Science Image Editor 2 and thought that I would give it a look. I am looking for a way to batch event images that requires minimal intervention with decent results, so the concept is appealing. I started with a number of images from a recent Judo tournament acquired with a 20D, 85 1.8 at 1.8, at ISO1600 as jpg's - processed in camera with neutral settings and adobeRGB color space. Image from the camera below (downsized and converted to sRGB for web display).


Here is what it looks like [below] based on my standard - give it 15 -30 seconds of attention workflow [In ACDSee: adjust exposure/black-white pts, auto shadow-highlight, set white point; in Photoshop run batch action with: NoiseNinja, Photokit Capture Sharpen, Curves in LAB accenting the A channel, Luminence sharpen]


If I substitute the IE2 application running as an automated batch process with the defaults (except for sharpening and noise removal) in place of the manual ACD step above:


And finally, with IE2 setting the colors, performing only the noise reduction and sharpening (no LAB curves):


To summerize, the first image is the in-camera JPG, the 2nd involved about 15-30 seconds of hands-on time, followed by a PS Action; and the last two involved two batches, IE2 followed by a PS Action.

In this gallery http://www.troutstreaming.com/gallery/2437858/7/127841020 I have the results of 13 images processed in 16 different combinations of this workflow to try and determine if order of application changes my opinion of the results, plus to add some variety of shots (although all are still judo mat shots.) If anyone should stop by and look through that mass of images, please comment on which treatments you like (or do not like.) If you view the Photo info and look at the filenames and reference the gallery description you can tell what was done with which and in what order. I have originals enabled, but to save upload time downsized all of the files to 1024 pixels wide.

The gallery of images from the tournament that I posted based on a the hand adjust exposure in ACDSee treatment followed by batch noise reduction, color boost and sharpening process is here: http://www.troutstreaming.com/gallery/2409172/1/126291913

Thanks in advance for the feedback/thoughts,

Andy

PS Having my 20D in the shop has freed up some time to do evaluations like this...

Andy

Take the i2e saturation down -5 for shots like this, that's what I do.

Pupator

Andy (first Andy, not second Andy),

Thanks for taking the time to do this - very interesting stuff.

You forgot to tell us what your conclusion was. That is, which do you like the best? Also, have you tried using the IE2 settings that smugmug uses for the auto color printing option?

I used I2E on a few hundred shots from my recent trip and was quite pleased. I still have several images I want to edit by hand, but this gave me near instant versions that I could post online.

troutstreaming

Pupator wrote:

Andy (first Andy, not second Andy),

Thanks for taking the time to do this - very interesting stuff.

You forgot to tell us what your conclusion was. That is, which do you like the best? Also, have you tried using the IE2 settings that smugmug uses for the auto color printing option?

I used I2E on a few hundred shots from my recent trip and was quite pleased. I still have several images I want to edit by hand, but this gave me near instant versions that I could post online.

Currently leaning toward the IE2; NN Luminence Sharpen flow as a couple of the IE2; NN, LAB Curve, Luminence Sharpen varients were over the top. I also liked the IE2 employed as a first step, but will play some with a three step batch NN(PS); IE2; Sharpen(PS) but that entails 3 seperate saving steps so I hope that I do not decide I like it better. I was suprised that the IE2; NN SHARP looked different enough from the NN SHRP; IE2 varients that my wife chose the former every time - except when she chose the IE2; NN CURVE SHARPEN varient.

Next step will be to play with the intensity of the IE2 settings. Looks like they will be getting my $