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I2E Image Editor Discussion

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    dmcreationsdmcreations Registered Users Posts: 25 Big grins
    edited January 8, 2007
    Hi Andy/Baldy,

    Is there a chance you guys could post the settings you do use for I2E to auto correct the images before they get printed? Would be great to be able to see how the shots might look when printed by you guys.

    Thanks!
    Warren
    Digital Multimedia Creations
    www.digital-multimedia-creations.com
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    troutstreamingtroutstreaming Registered Users Posts: 116 Major grins
    edited March 12, 2007
    I2E Settings?
    I noticed several 'we should start a I2E thread' replies in the Flea Market Huge Discount Thread, but did not find the new thread here. That said, let's start one.

    I currently have no clear thoughts on settings and have been using the defaults or smugmugs either with or without preprcessing for underexposure enabled.

    In my mind I could see developing the following scenarios based on the type of shots that I most want to batch reprocess entire galleries of (obvious sports shooting bias to this list):

    Indoor high Iso - no exposure correction - likely with color cast issues.
    Indoor high Iso - exposure correction (for when 3200 is still underexposing at the minimum shutter speed) - likely will have color cast issues to go with the underexposure and severe noise.
    Outdoors - high contrast, mixed subjects - think mid-day shooting with sunlight - usually consitant white balance/cast - think automatic shadow and highlight rescue, with lower iso's and no noise.
    Outdoors - low contrast, mixed subjects - think cloudy days - usually mid-ISO with some noise and may have some color cast issues, overall exposure probably OK without extreme shadow/highlight issues.

    Indoor portraits with flash - mostly a memory color correction thing, may have highlight/shadow issues if I was lazy or halfhazardly firing off candids.
    Indoor portraits with ambient light - memory color, color casts, noise, hopefully exposures are good though.

    Anyway, as noted I have no settings to add currently, but have now run hundreds of images using the default and smugmug settings under the first three exposures scenarios and thought that they looked better than what I could achieve in 15-30 seconds of hand work per image (and with a huge reduction in my effort to boot) and so purchased the product. I think that with 5-15' to spend per image that I will continue to hand process with a Dan Margulis inspired workflow.

    Does this help jumpstart the I2E settings thread?

    Andy (not that one.)
    www.troutstreaming.com
    Outdoor and Sports Media
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    wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited March 12, 2007
    I used the program for the first time this weekend.

    I processed the same file twice: once with Digital Photo Pro, and once with i2e, both shot in RAW and saved as Tiffs.

    When I opened both in Photoshop, the 12e file was considerably smaller than the DPP file. I had hoped to layer them, but couldn't.

    headscratch.gif
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
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    gchappelgchappel Registered Users Posts: 120 Major grins
    edited March 15, 2007
    With i2e the output size is set under channel settings. I don't remember what the default was, since I changed everything. If you choose no downsizing the original file size seems to be maintained.
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    gchappelgchappel Registered Users Posts: 120 Major grins
    edited March 15, 2007
    I have used the program for a couple of weeks- and just purchased the pro version as I like the ability to save multiple channels. I have been playing with the SHE shadow enhancment. I find it changes darker colors as it increases shadow levels- so I will often dial it down to 0-10 rather than the default of 100- especially on indoor shots. I find that looks a lot better.
    Let me know your experiences.
    gary
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    wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited March 25, 2007
    Three versions of the same shot (crops slightly different.)


    Through Canon's Digital Photo Pro. I didn't change the warm cast the camera's auto white balance, and DPP, gave the image. Curves and sharpening and saturation.

    138414745-L.jpg




    Using Photoshop's raw processor, and setting black and white points in Photoshop's Levels. Also a Lightness channel pop. Curves and sharpening and saturation.

    138519201-L.jpg



    Using i2e. I set the Shadows to their second lowest setting. (The normal setting didn't look very good, IMHO.) Other than that, I used the i2e auto settings. No other processing in PS, just a crop. No sharpening.

    138519196-L.jpg
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited March 25, 2007
    wxwax wrote:
    Three versions of the same shot (crops slightly different.)

    And? ear.gif
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    wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited March 25, 2007
    Andy wrote:
    And? ear.gif
    ne_nau.gif

    It was an interesting exercise for me. I recognized the warm cast of the DPP version, and decided to change it with both PS and i2e. Last night I was OK with the warm cast of the DPP version. Today I see that the PS processed version is the best of the three.

    I was surprised at the difficulty i2e had with the young woman's face. I tried different levels of shadows, highlights, messed around with other settings. I'm not skilled enough using i2e to make it work for this particular image.
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
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    DavidSDavidS Registered Users Posts: 1,279 Major grins
    edited March 28, 2007
    Baldy wrote:
    That's a very good question...

    I also bring up the overall brightess by 10 points by default.

    Forgive my ignorance. Do you bring up ABE to 110 from the default of 100 or do you bring up Brightness Correction to 10 from the default of 0?
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 7, 2007
    Spun off from Nik's post, here:
    http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=58191

    Hrm. Well, there's some oddness about the sky in the posted JPG by Nik. But here's a 5second one-button push of i2e :)

    141834611-L.jpg
    141834590-L.jpg

    Rutt, why are the pants of the guy just to our right of the pipe-smoker, dirty in your shot?
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    Mike LaneMike Lane Registered Users Posts: 7,106 Major grins
    edited April 7, 2007
    Andy wrote:
    Hrm. Well, there's some oddness about the sky in the posted JPG by Nik. But here's a 5second one-button push of i2e :)
    You got that in 5 seconds? :wow I'm going to have to take up that deal on i2e! clap.gifdeal.gif
    Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.

    http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
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    NikolaiNikolai Registered Users Posts: 19,035 Major grins
    edited April 7, 2007
    Andy,
    Andy wrote:
    Hrm. Well, there's some oddness about the sky in the posted JPG by Nik. But here's a 5second one-button push of i2e :)

    Wow, that's impressive! thumb.gif Mebbe I need to reconsider this s/w...
    "May the f/stop be with you!"
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 7, 2007
    Andy wrote:
    Hrm. Well, there's some oddness about the sky in the posted JPG by Nik. But here's a 5second one-button push of i2e :)

    141834611-L.jpg
    141834590-L.jpg

    New i2e version, from Nik's raw file.

    141886730-L.jpg
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    ruttrutt Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
    edited April 7, 2007
    Andy wrote:
    New i2e version, from Nik's raw file.

    Pretty good for an algorithm, eh? But none of us has really rung the bell on this image. I want to see the folds and other details on those uniforms and I also want that deep blue. I'm thinking it's a CMYK thing. Could be sort of like the Labrador retriever treatments which involve false false separations into CMYK and extreme steepening and sharpening of the K. Maybe with HIRALOAM K?

    Meanwhile that sky has a green cast and the faces are too magenta...
    If not now, when?
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 7, 2007
    rutt wrote:
    Pretty good for an algorithm, eh? But none of us has really rung the bell on this image. I want to see the folds and other details on those uniforms and I also want that deep blue. I'm thinking it's a CMYK thing. Could be sort of like the Labrador retriever treatments which involve false false separations into CMYK and extreme steepening and sharpening of the K. Maybe with HIRALOAM K?

    Meanwhile that sky has a green cast and the faces are too magenta...
    Yes but it's pretty darn good considering the extremes of the image :rutt
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 9, 2007
    wxwax wrote:
    I reckon I'm slowly improving at processing these images. For the first time, I did all of the following: used Levels to set black and white points, used separate Curves for Luminosity blending and Color blending, then Saturation, and Sharpen. I'd never before used a Curve using the Luminosity blend mode, nor the Color mode. I can see how much more control this gives you. OK, so I'm a slow learner. lol3.gif

    I think the technique really helped me bring out the first baseman's face.

    So, waxy sent me the raw file. And then I plopped it into i2e - then uploaded and here it is.

    Waxy's first, i2e second:
    142205654-L.jpg
    142390514-L-1.jpg

    bowdown.gif

    Of course, I could have made it a tad less light, with one more click - but still, not bad thumb.gif
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    wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited April 9, 2007
    I'm glad you did this, Andy. thumb.gif

    I'll need to look at it on my better monitor this evening to make a fair assessment. My first instinct is that out of the box, i2e seems to work better on indoor images. I say that, because of the wonderful results you and Baldy get with it. I'm less pleased with its results on outdoor images. I wish I were better at manipulating it.
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 9, 2007
    wxwax wrote:
    I'm glad you did this, Andy. thumb.gif

    I'll need to look at it on my better monitor this evening to make a fair assessment. My first instinct is that out of the box, i2e seems to work better on indoor images. I say that, because of the wonderful results you and Baldy get with it. I'm less pleased with its results on outdoor images. I wish I were better at manipulating it.
    No doubt, one can do better in photoshop. But for a one-button adjustment, this is, IMO, a more than acceptable result.... point being, that if you had to process 1000 of these images, you'd be well off using such a tool thumb.gif
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    wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited April 9, 2007
    Andy wrote:
    No doubt, one can do better in photoshop. But for a one-button adjustment, this is, IMO, a more than acceptable result.... point being, that if you had to process 1000 of these images, you'd be well off using such a tool thumb.gif
    Roger that. thumb.gif
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
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    RogersDARogersDA Registered Users Posts: 3,502 Major grins
    edited April 11, 2007
    Is it me or is there no way to save a file in a resolution higher than 72 dpi using the stand-alone i2e program?
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    NikolaiNikolai Registered Users Posts: 19,035 Major grins
    edited April 11, 2007
    Plug-in question
    Can PS plug-in work in batch mode? Or do I need to get a certain edition of the standalone exe?
    "May the f/stop be with you!"
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    Mike LaneMike Lane Registered Users Posts: 7,106 Major grins
    edited April 15, 2007
    I must be doing something wrong. I just downloaded the i2e standard so I could edit straight from my raw files. But editing straight from raw doesn't produce good results for me. I'll upload the raw file to the wiki in a bit so anyone can have a go at it if they want. EDIT: Here is the Raw file.

    So here's an example pic using i2e to process straight from the raw file:
    143840897-L.jpg

    Now I put the raw file through ACR and saved it as a jpg in photoshop and got this:
    143840930-L.jpg

    Then I put the one that went through ACR into i2e to get this.
    143840976-L.jpg


    So I like the 3rd one the best and I dislike the raw from i2e the most. But it seems like a fairly annoying workflow to go from raw -> ACR -> i2e -> photoshop (if you've got extra things you want to do with the pic). So the question is what am I doing wrong? How can I get good results from i2e with the raw file straight from i2e?

    Gallery is here. Uploading raw shortly... Here it is.
    Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.

    http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
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    gchappelgchappel Registered Users Posts: 120 Major grins
    edited April 15, 2007
    RogersDA wrote:
    Is it me or is there no way to save a file in a resolution higher than 72 dpi using the stand-alone i2e program?
    There really is no relationship in a digital file itself between resolution and dpi. It does get confusing and DPI is important when you go to print.
    For example a 4X6" file at 300 dpi is 1200x1800 pixels.
    The exact same file is 16X25" at 72 dpi- again 1200x1800 pixels.
    No pixels were harmed or changed in this calculation. So what size is it really- looks like Einstein's theory of general relativity- there is no absolute answer. The lower the dpi, the larger the image- but the file size is the same. wings.gif
    ie2 can save in many formats- look under channel settings, output format and folder. Check no downsizing and at least for me my file size remains unchanged. Again at this point dpi doesn't play a real role- check the pixel dimensions and go from there.
    Hope that helps
    Gary
    gchappel
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    wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited April 15, 2007
    Mike Lane wrote:
    I So the question is what am I doing wrong? How can I get good results from i2e with the raw file straight from i2e?

    Did you try Baldy's suggestion of different shadow settings?

    I find the second and third versions to be overexposed. I think the first is a good starting point, but needs a little bit of tweaking. If I can, I'll take a stab at using your RAW file, using i2e.
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
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    ruttrutt Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
    edited April 15, 2007
    Mike Lane wrote:
    So I like the 3rd one the best and I dislike the raw from i2e the most. But it seems like a fairly annoying workflow to go from raw -> ACR -> i2e -> photoshop (if you've got extra things you want to do with the pic). So the question is what am I doing wrong? How can I get good results from i2e with the raw file straight from i2e?
    Beautiful baby, Mike. Is he (she?) yours. I would guess so.

    I find your reaction to the three different versions of this shot pretty interesting. In some strict sense, the first shot is best. Better detail Better contrast. But of course that's not at all what you want from this shot. You want soft skin and sharp eyes. At least. No wonder i2e was fooled.

    Let's forget about the details of how i2e or a photoshop rat would do it, but let's start with the third version and so if and how much we can improve it. At each step, I'd like to know whether you think there was a real improvement, or perhaps a degradation of some sort.

    Skin tone balance Do you really want your baby that magenta? Looks like he's been crying or cold. Is this an improvement?

    143892461-L.jpg

    Find some more shape and depth I understand that you don't want a lot of skin texture or blotches or to see the veins. But I'd think you'd like to see some more depth and shape in the face if it doesn't bring out the skin texture. Is this an improvement?

    143898457-L.jpg

    Get some color into the extreme highlights Now what about that blown out patch on the left side of his head? Highlights are good but I like to see some flesh tones even in the extreme highlights. This needs to be extremely subtle, but I've never come across anyone who didn't think it was a good idea once s/he saw it. Is this an improvement?

    143898698-L.jpg

    Color and contrast Now I think the baby is a little too pale. We can't give him a sunburn because after all, this is a baby. But we'd like so healthy color. In the first step, we reduced the magenta for the sake of losing the unhealthy looking magenta flesh tones. Now we'd like some healthy pink cheeks. While I'm was at it I added a little more contrast through the face. Is this an improvement? [My guess is that this will be the most marginal of these moves.]

    143898237-L.jpg

    Sharpen I2e sees to have done some, but also left something on the table. I want those eyes to look gleam and look sharp. I also want a lttle more shape in the face. I got both by very careful sharpening, limiting conventional sharpening to the non-yellow parts of the image and blending in a very little HIRALOAM to the yellow parts. Is this an improvement?

    143898807-L.jpg

    Cool just a bit Looks like I got him just a little too, so cool off the highlights just a little. I think this is a clear improvement. Agree?

    144050096-L.jpg

    So, lots of little change, but together they do add up. Maybe too much?

    144053588-L.jpg

    So what's the point? I love the idea of i2e. What I do can be very time consuming. I think there is a lot to learn about what i2e is good at and where it can be improved.
    If not now, when?
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    Mike LaneMike Lane Registered Users Posts: 7,106 Major grins
    edited April 16, 2007
    Rutt first thanks for replying and thanks for the compliments about William (that cute little bugger there). Maybe my problems with i2e have more to do with my eye than with i2e's various renderings.

    When I look at the first pic in your post:

    143892461-S.jpg

    I don't see too much magenta. From the sounds of it, you see much more magenta in his face than I do. It isn't until the end of your post after you've fixed up the pics and you compare the two side-by-side that I see that there is indeed more magenta in there than I'd like. (My monitor is calibrated with a huey btw, not saying it's right or wrong just giving all the info)

    I've tried working with the CMYK formulas that are in the smugmug help files. Using those I've found that I end up with too much yellow. Of course, I don't really notice it until someone else points out the jaundiced baby I've got.

    Maybe it's just a matter of training my eye. Well it's either that or ignoring my eye and learning how to interpret the photoshop info box better. This may be beyond the scope of this thread, but what can one do to train one's eye to see these things? Or should I simply get used to looking at the color values and forget what I'm seeing almost entirely?
    Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.

    http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
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    ruttrutt Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
    edited April 16, 2007
    Mike Lane wrote:

    When I look at the first pic in your post:

    143892461-S.jpg
    [IMGr]http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/2791546-S.jpg[/IMGr]
    Maybe I wasn't clear. My first post already was corrected for magenta/yellow balance. I was going to post side by sides of each step, but it was too much work.

    Anyway, you can't really train your eye. You have to measure. Your visual system tries really really hard to make things look right. In real life, it will correct for some pretty weird light. Do you notice how yellow incandescent light is? Do you notice how blue daylight is by comparison? Can you tell whether someone looks sick, well, tired, etc under various different lights? Of course you can. There's at least a billion years of evolution that enables you to do so.

    Monitors are much less immersive than reality but much more so than prints. This is the part of color collaboration which is fallacious. No matter what the spectrometer says, the monitor is never really going to look like a print. Things will always look right on your monitor that don't look right in print, even if the spectrometer says they should look the same.

    I've posted this image too many times but it never fails to be relevant. Squares A and B are the same exact same color. Your spectrometer will tell you that. Photoshop will tell you that. Load the image into Photoshop and start painting brush strokes from A to B using that color. At first it looks as if the brush strokes change color in the middle. Erase the cylinder. The illusion is amazingly robust. In fact, under some perfectly reasonably subjective definition of the word "color" there is no way A and B are the same color. Nobody would say that they are unless he used a spectrometer to measure them.

    Anyway, as you noted this is all kind of a highjack. My real points were:
    1. You are really asking a lot from i2e here. As Sid noted, you prefer a soft, almost overexposed version of this image, sort of a baby glamor look. I knew that from your comments and because I am a person not an algorithm. Without that knowledge, my result would have looked a lot more like i2e's first version,
    2. Even so, I was able to improve on i2e starting with the result you liked the most, though I have to admit it took me longer than it took i2e.
    3. For some reason, on this particular image, all your i2e results have what I would consider unacceptable skin tones. Perhaps this is some sort of pilot error and not really an i2e issue? But look at the difference when I correct your first image with just a little less blue in the quarter through midtones where the baby lives:

      144233223-L.jpg

      144234342-S.gif

      In fact with this correction, perhaps the first i2e version looks much more acceptable? What do you think, Mike?
    If not now, when?
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    dandilldandill Registered Users Posts: 102 Major grins
    edited April 16, 2007
    rutt wrote:
    I've posted this image too many times but it never fails to be relevant. Squares A and B are the same exact same color.
    Amazing! Details from Edward Adelson are here.
    Dan Dill

    "It is a magical time. I am reluctant to leave. Yet the shooting becomes more difficult, the path back grows black as it is without this last light. I don't do it anymore unless my husband is with me, as I am still afraid of the dark, smile.

    This was truly last light, my legs were tired, my husband could no longer read and was anxious to leave, but the magic and I, we lingered........"
    Ginger Jones
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    TerrenceTerrence Registered Users Posts: 477 Major grins
    edited April 16, 2007
    A few questions I hope someone can answer. The Colour Science web site is not too helpful answering these, which is why I am asking here.

    1. Does i2e leave the original RAW file unchanged or is it a destructive change process?

    2. If it is destructive, are people running i2e on TIFF or JPEG after doing some processing of RAW in say Lightroom, DPP or something similar?

    3. Is i2e a replacement for or augmentation of the processing one can do in Lightroom, DPP or other similar "just short of Photoshop" packages? I totally "get" the improvment in color correction and enhancement, but I don't clearly see the other uses and/or benefits.
    Terrence

    My photos

    "The future is an illusion, but a damned handy one." - David Allen
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited April 16, 2007
    Terrence wrote:
    A few questions I hope someone can answer. The Colour Science web site is not too helpful answering these, which is why I am asking here.

    1. Does i2e leave the original RAW file unchanged or is it a destructive change process?
    unchanged

    3. Is i2e a replacement for or augmentation of the processing one can do in Lightroom, DPP or other similar "just short of Photoshop" packages? I totally "get" the improvment in color correction and enhancement, but I don't clearly see the other uses and/or benefits.
    It is for color and exposure issues only. It does not do anything selective, only global.

    I use it as needed. I have CS3, Lightroom, and i2e.
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