Plugin for automatic color correction in Photoshop. Selective color correction in Photoshop. Tone correction in Lab mode

In this tutorial we'll show you how to apply selective color correction to a photo, or more precisely, how to convert an image to black and white, but still leave the selected element in color.

And although this effect is extremely easy to achieve in Photoshop, many are wary of it because they are not always sure that they are choosing the right tools. Most often, people resort to selection tools, and then there are often hiccups. In this tutorial we'll show you how to create this effect without using selection tools. All we need is a simple Black & White adjustment layer, a layer mask and a brush, nothing more!

I'll be working in Photoshop CC, but this tutorial is also compatible with Photoshop CS6.

So, before us is the original photograph, which shows a woman in a red dress.

Original image

And here is the image that we will get after performing all the necessary manipulations. The entire photo will be converted to black and white except for the red dress. Again, we won't resort to using any selection tools.

Final image

You can follow all the steps in this tutorial while working with your own photo. Just select a photo and identify an object that will remain in color, it could be a dress, a flower, a telephone booth, in general, anything. Let's get started already!

Step 1: Black & White Adjustment Layer

Only after opening the program, you will see in the layers panel that the document so far contains only one layer - the Background layer - which is the original image.

We will create the effect using a non-destructive method, i.e. Let's leave the original image untouched and apply selective color replacement using a separate adjustment layer. Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the layers panel:

Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon

From the list that appears, select the Black & White item:

As the name of this adjustment layer tells us, it is used to convert a color image to black and white. Now let's look again at the layers panel, as you can see, above the Background layer there is now a new Black & White adjustment layer.

Photoshop placed a new adjustment layer on top of the image layer.

We see that the program itself converted our color photo to black and white, using the default settings. We can independently adjust the parameters of the black and white image, which is what we will do now.

Convert to black and white by default.

Step 2. Adjust the settings for converting to B/W

You can find all the controls for the Black & White adjustment layer in the Properties panel. Here you will see six sliders, three of which are responsible for the primary colors (Red, Green and Blue) and the next three for the secondary colors (Yellow, Cyan and Magenta). Move the slider to the left to darken, or to the right to lighten the area of ​​the image that contains a given color in full color.

For example, moving the red slider to the right will cause the area of ​​the image that originally contained red to become lighter. And by moving the blue slider to the left, we will darken the areas that were originally blue. You should not thoroughly memorize the colors of all image elements, since this is easy to understand by moving the sliders. Do you like the result? Yes? Amazing. No? Then keep experimenting with sliders.

Move the sliders to darken or lighten areas of the image based on their original color.

Above the sliders you will find the Auto button. This button sends a command to Photoshop, by which the program itself selects the parameters. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But you can always correct the result yourself after using the Auto button.

If you want to compare your black and white version with the color version, simply click on the visibility icon (the eye-shaped icon) in the Layers panel to turn off the visibility of the adjustment layer. By turning it off, you will see your original image. To return to black and white, return the adjustment layer's visibility:

This is what my photo looks like after conversion. At this stage there is no point in making everything perfect. You will see that we can always return to this point to make any changes.

Corrected black and white version

Step 3: Select the Brush Tool

One of the main advantages of all adjustment layers is the built-in layer with a mask. In this article I will not go into detail about how exactly masks work, but if you are interested, I advise you to find the material and read it. And although the mask is not visible to us in the image itself, we know that it is there because its thumbnail is displayed in the layers panel. Notice that at this stage the thumbnail is filled with white, which means that the adjustment layer is affecting the image layer underneath it.

We can reveal some of our color source image with an adjustment layer by simply painting over the mask with a black brush. Select the Brush Tool from the Tools panel:

Step 4: Select a Soft Round Brush

Right-click on any part of the open document (Ctrl key for Mac) to open the Brush Presets panel. Then select the soft round brush from the top left corner of the panel. Press Enter (Return for Mac) to close the window.

Select a soft round brush

Step 5: Change the Foreground Color to Black

Photoshop uses the Foreground color as the brush color. Since we need to paint with black using the layer mask, we should change the Foreground color to black. To do this quickly, press the D key. This command instantly sets the original colors for the foreground and background, namely white and black. To change them, press the X key on your keyboard. The foreground color should now be black.

We can see the current colors at the bottom of the toolbar. The foreground color is indicated by the square located at the top, and the background color at the bottom.

Step 6: Paint the inside of the object

To return the color to the selected object, first, arm yourself with a large soft brush and on the layer mask, begin to paint only the inner part with black, without touching the edges of the object. You can change the brush size using the keyboard. Hold down the key ] to increase the brush size, and the key [ to reduce. To increase brush hardness, hold down Shift along with the key ] , and in order to reduce hardness use a combination Shift+[.

In my photo, I decided to return the color to the girl's dress. I use a large diameter brush to paint most of the object without worrying about the edges. I started from the bottom of the dress.

I then switched to a smaller brush and painted part of the top of the dress, again leaving the edges alone.

Notice that if we look at the layer mask thumbnail, we can see that the areas we painted in the photo are now showing up in black. This is how a layer mask works. The color white is used to indicate the areas of the image to which the effect is applied. The black color on the layer mask indicates areas where the effect is hidden.

Step 7: Paint the edges with a smaller radius brush

To accurately draw the edges of an object, you should first zoom in on the picture. You can also use convenient hotkeys for this. To zoom in on a photo, press and hold Ctrl+Spacebar (Win)/Command+Spacebar (Mac) and click on the desired area of ​​the image. To zoom out of a photo, use the following keys: Alt+Spacebar (Win) / Option+Spacebar (Mac).

To draw finer details in the photo we will need a brush with a smaller diameter. To make the brush smaller, I press the left square bracket key several times. You may have to increase the hardness of the brush; I described how to do this using hotkeys just above.

Very carefully draw the edges of the object with a brush of a smaller diameter.

If you accidentally drive over the boundary of an object, there will be nothing wrong with that. For example, I accidentally drew a finger:

This error is very easy to fix. Press the key X to change the foreground color from black to white. Then use a white brush to paint over the area you touched to get rid of the color. And then press the key again X to return black as the main color and continue working.

I continue to paint around the edges of the dress, zooming in and out and changing the hardness and size of the brush if necessary.

Final result:

Step 8. Make adjustments to the Black&White settings

At this point you may want to adjust the settings of the Black&White adjustment layer. To do this, in the layers panel, go to this adjustment layer and open its settings panel. Adjust the sliders until you achieve the desired result.

Additional step:

Since we worked with only one adjustment layer, we can easily reduce its effect, partially returning the photo to its original colors. To do this, we just need to slightly reduce the Opacity of the layer. You'll find this option at the top right of the Layers panel. I reduced the opacity to 75%:

This adjustment will allow the original colors to show through a little through the adjustment layer that sits on top of the image. Let's compare the Before and After photos again:

And here's the final image with the vibrant red dress taking center stage.

Distorted color rendition, incorrect exposure, lack of sharpness - all this can ruin the impression of the most worthy composition. We have selected five popular programs that will help you fix all the “jambs” of your photos.

They're all free and easy to use, with auto-correction for lazy users and manual correction for those who know what needs to be fixed and want to experiment.

1. Photos app (Microsoft)

This application is included in the package of pre-installed Windows 10 applications. Convenient viewing of photos, beautiful albums by date and quick photo editing.

Here you can automatically enhance a photo, rotate it, crop it, remove red-eye, and save a photo with a “cluttered” horizon.

There are also different filters, light, color, contrast, temperatures and other usual parameters. Everything is clear, beautiful and simple.

2. Ashampoo Photo Commander Free

A fairly simple free program with the ability to automatically optimize photos and manually adjust them. Regular tools and filters, you can create a calendar or collage in a minute.

3.

There is auto-correction for hue and contrast; you can choose from three saturation modes or edit it manually. You can set an area in the photo in which the colors will be more saturated. Sharpness, filters, different backlight levels.

In addition, here you can quickly and easily make a collage, a GIF, and divide a photo into several separate parts, which will be saved as separate photos in a folder.

4. Zoner Photo Studio 17 (Russian version) and Zoner Photo Studio 18

A convenient tool for quick photo correction. True, before you start working in the program you need to register and follow the link, but all this goes quite quickly. Initially, you are provided with the PRO version for 30 days, after which the program will return to the regular free version.

There is a convenient explorer with which you can select the photo you need, quick auto-correction Edit→Adjust→Quick Fix, changing size and orientation, adding text and changing various parameters - exposure, color temperature, etc.

However, it is more convenient to adjust everything not through the menu, but in the Develop tab. Here you can quickly change different settings manually or click Automatically.

The Editor tab has all the tools for more thorough work with photos and pictures - brushes, fills, erasers, various shapes, text, symbols, in general, everything that is in a regular photo editor. And filters - where would we be without them?

This version has a slightly different interface, but has all the functions for both professional and quick photo processing. To enable auto-correction, you need to click “Quick fix”.

In general, the program has quite a lot of possibilities, both for professional photo processing and for those who want to quickly and easily edit photos.

5.

An excellent cataloger and photo viewer from Google with all the necessary functions for photo correction. "I'm feeling lucky" feature launches auto-correction, there is also automatic contrast and color correction.

Before you start getting acquainted with color correction, it is worth clarifying that this topic is very broad. To engage in color correction at the proper level, it is better to take special courses where you will be taught the basics of color harmony, taught how to correctly combine colors and use existing methods and methods of color correction. And it is advisable to obtain a certificate. In the age of digital technology, photo processing is a very profitable activity. And the most profitable investment at all times has been and remains education.

We will look at the basic universal method of color correction.

Before you make color correction in Photoshop, you need to understand what it is and for what purpose it is used.

Color correction is a change in the colors, tones and saturation of an image, used either to improve the picture or as a creative technique. The first case may include the need to get more realistic colors or make the photo lighter. After all, with certain settings of photographic equipment, colors can be transmitted distortedly, not the way we see them in real life. This also includes photo correction to increase color saturation to make the photo more attractive. In the second case, color correction will be suggested to you by your own imagination. This could be vintage color correction, fantastic colors of landscapes and the like.

Color correction in Photoshop is done on adjustment layers. If color correction is applied to an image layer, the changes to the image will be irreversible. Adjustment layers work like filters. All effects of the adjustment layer will be visible in the image below this layer. Also, the adjustment layer will allow you to make changes to the final result, if necessary. We discussed the topic of layers in a previous article.

Automatic color correction

The easiest and fastest way for beginners is automatic color correction. Open the image in Photoshop, create a duplicate of the image layer ( Ctrl+G). Go to the duplicate layer and click Shift+Ctrl+B. This Photoshop command automatically adjusts the contrast and color of an image, automatically detecting shadows, midtones, and highlights.

This is what the pictures look like before and after automatic color correction.

Hue/Saturation

Open the image in Photoshop. On the layers palette, find the list of adjustment layers by clicking the half-filled circle icon.

Select from the list “Hue/Saturation”/Hue/Saturation.

In the layer settings dialog box, you can change “Hue of flowers”/Hue, "Brightness"/Lightness(make the photo lighter or darker) and “Color saturation”/Saturation(make faded or rich shades).

An image can be divided into color channels. The settings allow you to work with all color channels simultaneously or with one.

When working with a separate color channel, selecting a specific hue that needs to be changed, use the tool "Pipette". Click on the tool icon, move it to the desired area of ​​the photo and make one click. You will see stops on the gradients. On color gradients, you can limit the color range, then changes will occur only in it. By moving the limiters, you set the operating range.

Next, by moving the hue, saturation and brightness sliders, all that remains is to select the settings according to your task. Let's give this photo a purple tint to get a more colorful sunset. To do this, select the blue channel. Drag the range stopper on the gradient to the right to capture the range of purple shades. Move the slider closer to purple Hue, add saturation. When finished, close the settings window.

That's how it happened.

You can learn even more about Photoshop in the course at Fotoshkola.net.

Curves

Adjustment Layer "Curves" has more abilities than we will consider in the basic method for beginners.

Open the image, call the adjustment layer "Curves" from the list of adjustment layers.

A settings dialog will open. Initially the curve appears straight. We are interested in the tool "Pipette". There are three of them. The first is responsible for shadows, the second for midtones, and the third for highlights.

Now we take the eyedroppers in turn: the first one clicks on the blackest part of the photo, the second one on the gray one, the third one on the whitest part.

With each dropper you use you will see changes. Curves of RGB color channels (red, green, blue) will appear on the graph. When finished, the curves window can be closed.

In the end it will turn out like this.

Levels

For the adjustment layer "Levels" We will also consider only the basic method of application.

A raster image, and in this case the image of our photos, consists of dots. These dots each have their own color. The black, gray and white points in the image are responsible for saturation, brightness and light. Adjustment Layer "Levels" allows you to change the point value level. Level 0 - black pixels, 255 - white. Level 128 - gray. The remaining levels range between 0 and 255. Redistributing the levels changes the tonal range of the image.

For quick color correction, you need to redistribute the level of midtones. Open the image, select from the list of adjustment layers "Levels".

In the settings dialog box, select the middle eyedropper, which is responsible for midtones. In the image, click on the area where there should be perfect gray. Then close the settings window. In this way, equal values ​​of red, green and blue are selected.

As a result, we get a balanced, rich picture.

Auto Adjust Photo is a lightweight and simple tool for automatically color adjusting photos. It may be useful for those users who find it difficult to use complex graphics programs for color correction of images, or who simply do not have the time to spend a lot of time manually working with images.

Incorrect colors in photographs are one of the most common problems for digital point-and-shoot cameras and cameras built into mobile phones.

Accordingly, color correction of photographs is often one of the most necessary operations with photographs taken at a party, on a hike, etc. There are powerful graphics programs that have many tools for such correction. However, for many users, such programs can either be difficult to learn, or there is no time to deal with them for the sake of several family photos.

This is a small program with a command line interface designed for automatic tone correction of photographs. The program performs this operation by analyzing the source image and setting the most optimal parameters for contrast, gamma, color balance and saturation.

Aaphoto is a cross-platform application. Versions are available for Windows and Mac OS X. It is available in the repositories of many popular Linux distributions. The program size is several hundred kilobytes. Current version is 0.41. The program belongs to the category, and in other words, it is free.

The program can be used in command line mode or integrated into the system context menu. For example, after installation on a Windows system, the "Auto Adjust Photo" option will appear in the right-click context menu of image files.

After selecting this option on a file or group of image files, the program will automatically analyze the original image and then set the most optimal contrast, gamma and color balance values ​​for it. The new version of the image will be saved as a separate file, with the line "new" appended to its name.

Aaphoto processes the following image formats: MIF, PNM, PGM, PPM, BMP, RAS, JP2, JPC, JPG, PNG.

Depending on the image, in some cases the enhancements created by Aaphoto will be barely visible to the eye. In other cases, the image improvement will be very noticeable.

In conclusion, we can add that using Aaphoto you can not only correct photos. In command line mode, the program can convert files from one format to another, as well as change the size and perform different types of image rotation. To get acquainted with all the features of Aaphoto, you need to run the program in the terminal with the "-h" parameter.

Mikhail ASTAPCHIK

Nowadays you won’t surprise anyone with a digital camera - probably every family has one. Both young and old take pictures; The quality of the photographs leaves much to be desired: many photographs seem to be shrouded in some kind of fog; the bright blue sky looks gray on them, the sunset is not at all as amazing as you thought when shooting; Objects that are quite visible during the photographing process appear in deep shadow in the resulting images, etc. Of course, you don’t want to show such photos to friends and acquaintances, or print them. If the pictures reflect truly important moments in your life, then you can try to improve them using one or another software tool. However, not all users have the necessary experience for this, and it takes a lot of time to correct photos.

A more than urgent task arises: how quickly and with minimal preparation (or no preparation at all) can be done to improve the moments captured on the camera. Of course, we are not talking about obtaining masterpieces of photographic art from the point of view of professional photographers, but simply about improving the brightness, contrast and saturation of images, adjusting the color scheme on them, drawing out shadows, etc. If the appropriate corrective operations are carried out correctly, you can get natural and attractive photographs from seemingly irretrievably lost low-quality images.

The question is what software solutions are able to provide such transformations automatically and with the least effort for the user. There are options here... Theoretically, minimal capabilities for basic auto photo correction are now provided even in ordinary graphics viewers, such as XnView, IrfanView, etc. However, to change incorrect exposure settings, correct poor color rendition, sharpen the image, etc. It makes more sense to turn to more suitable products - specialized programs for improving images or comprehensive solutions for image processing (photo editors and photo organizers). We will look at some such programs in this article. But first, let’s clarify a number of rules that should be followed to carry out successful auto-correction.

Rules you shouldn't forget about

1. Auto-correction of pictures that have already been subjected to some kind of artistic processing (for example, effects and frames have been added to the photo) will most likely be unsuccessful. Any “decoration” of images is carried out only at the final stage, after all the required correction operations: noise removal, color correction, sharpness adjustment, etc.
2. You should not try to correct photos using different software tools one by one, since during such transformations, in some solutions some important information about the image is deleted - as a result, the results of auto-correction in other software products may turn out to be completely unpredictable.
3. If you use filters with your camera that create various effects when taking photographs, then be prepared for the fact that the effect may be canceled during automatic correction. Therefore, it is possible that to improve such images, photographs will have to be adjusted manually.

Specialized programs for improving images

There is not much highly specialized software for improving (or, as they say, optimizing) images on the market; We will focus on the most popular programs among users: Photomizer, PhotoPerfect Express, Ashampoo Photo Optimizer and SuperEasy Photo Booster. They in no way pretend to replace full-fledged editors for image processing, but nevertheless they allow you to correct digital photographs, and without the slightest difficulty (literally a couple of mouse clicks). In addition, these solutions do not require the user to have any global knowledge of correction (there is also no need to study lengthy manuals), so understanding them is not a problem.

To optimize images in any of these programs, it is enough to specify the image being processed (it is possible to improve tens or hundreds of photos at once in batch mode) and start the transformation process by clicking on the appropriate button, and then save the final image. And that's it - your pictures will become more expressive and more realistic almost in the blink of an eye (Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. Examples of image optimization in Photomizer

Photomizer 2.0

Developer: Engelmann Media GmbH

Distribution size: Photomizer - 18 MB; Photomizer PRO - 30.4 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/Vista/7/8

Distribution method: shareware (3-day demo - ftp://ftp.engelmann.com/photomizer.exe ; ftp://ftp.engelmann.com/photomizer-pro.exe)

Price: Photomizer - 29.99 euros; Photomizer PRO - 49.99 euros

Photomizer is a simple solution for quickly improving photos, including in batch mode. The program can automatically correct color and exposure errors, improve insufficiently clear images and improve the level of illumination in areas of light and shadow. It can also be used to eliminate noise and remove artifacts resulting from JPEG image compression. In practice, this solution shows impressive results when processing images with irregular or muted colors (the latter often occurs when shooting underwater), blurry or foggy landscapes, photos taken in adverse weather conditions or in low light, old scanned photos, etc. To save time, the program comes with preset input profiles configured to optimize digital camera photos, slides, negatives, webcam photos, scanned photos and cell phone footage (custom profiles can be created). The program is presented in two editions: basic Photomizer and extended Photomizer PRO; the latter is equipped with a more solid set of built-in input profiles and additionally includes tools for eliminating distortion, as well as applying simple effects and frames.

Any transformation in Photomizer can be performed, in fact, in several steps - just load the image, select the input profile and check the boxes of the operations of interest (Fig. 2), although if you wish, you can intervene in the transformation process by changing the degree of impact of a particular operation on image. Processed photos are saved in JPG or BMP formats. It is possible to optimize hundreds of images at once in batch mode.

Rice. 2. Quick auto photo correction in Photomizer

PhotoPerfect Express 1.0

Developer: Arcadia Software

Distribution size: 40.9 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/Vista/7

Distribution method: freeware (http://www.photoperfect.com/download.html)

Price: free, but to use a number of features (some algorithms and batch processing) you need to purchase license keys: i?e Standard algorithm - $24.99; i?e Professional algorithm - $94.99; Perfectly Clear algorithm - $49.99, Batch and More module - $15, etc.

PhotoPerfect Express is a simple and convenient program for quickly improving photos. It implements five image optimization algorithms: RGBMax, YMax, Xe847, i2e and Perfectly Clear - the first three can be used for free; the other two are offered on a commercial basis (when using commercial algorithms without payment, a watermark is installed on the images). Each of the algorithms in its own way improves the image by adjusting color, brightness, contrast, sharpness and a number of other parameters, and the result, as a rule, turns out to be noticeably better than the original (this statement also applies to freely available algorithms, so purchase the keys to commercial tools are not needed by many users). Although everything, of course, depends on the original image, for example, to improve faded and faded photos, as well as images with deep shadows, it is better to use the Perfectly Clear algorithm, when processing landscapes or images taken in daylight, the Xe847 algorithm demonstrates excellent results, using which manages to bring a digital photograph to the form the photographer saw it at the time of shooting, etc. When using the i2e and Perfectly Clear algorithms, auto-correcting a photo can also eliminate red-eye and minimize noise. It is worth noting that when using the last three algorithms, it is possible to fine-tune a number of optimization parameters manually, taking into account the individual characteristics of the processed photo, which allows you to achieve even more impressive results.

Carrying out automatic correction of photos in PhotoPerfect Express is as easy as shelling pears - just open a folder with photos, specify a photo (if necessary, you can rotate it) and select the optimization algorithm whose processing result turned out to be the best (Fig. 3). Of course, you first need to view the results for each of the algorithms, which can be done by simply clicking on the buttons with the names of the algorithms and watching the photo change, or by calling up the results comparison window (Image Optimization ® All at once), in which the photo will be presented in six versions: original and five transformed. The resulting images are saved in JPG, BMP, TIF or PNG formats and can be sent for printing in popular formats (9x13, 10x15, 13x18, 20x25, etc.).

Rice. 3. Photo optimization using the Xe847 algorithm in PhotoPerfect Express

Optimizing images in batch mode in PhotoPerfect Express is theoretically possible, but in practice only commercial users will be able to use the corresponding tools, since it requires the purchase of the Batch and More batch processing module, which not only allows you to optimize hundreds of photos at once, but also provides access to cropping functions photo and resizing it.

Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 5.5

Developer: Ashampoo GmbH & Co. KG

Distribution size: 51.2 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/Vista/7/8

Distribution method: https://www.ashampoo.com/ru/rub/fdl)

Price: RUB 299.99

Ashampoo Photo Optimizer is a convenient program for quickly correcting unsuccessful photos in batch mode or one at a time. It automatically analyzes the image and makes the required adjustments to color, brightness and contrast, and also “stretches” shadows and sharpens images. As a rule, as a result of such transformations, visually the pictures become much more attractive, they turn out to be brighter, more contrasting and expressive; This is especially noticeable in darkened and faded photographs, photographs taken in poor lighting, etc. However, there are exceptions; in our case, for example, the program sometimes failed to properly adjust the color balance. Ashampoo Photo Optimizer also provides tools for manually processing images - you can rotate and flip images, crop them, level the horizon, eliminate red-eye and perform color correction. Additionally, it is possible to apply simple effects to photos (sepia, aging, blur, etc.) and introduce watermarks into them.

Automatic improvement of images in the program requires a minimum of effort from the user - you just need to open the folder with images and click on the “Optimize” button (Fig. 4). When manually adjusting color, the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and gamma values ​​are adjusted using sliders. Processed photos are saved in JPEG, BMP, PNG, TGA or TIFF formats; You can send photos by email, publish them to Facebook and Picasa web albums, set them as desktop wallpaper and print. You can optimize in one click in Ashampoo Photo Optimizer not only one photo, but also all images in a folder at the same time.

Rice. 4. Enhance your photo with Ashampoo Photo Optimizer

SuperEasy Photo Booster 1.1

Developer: SuperEasy GmbH & Co. KG

Distribution size: 8.31 MB

Work under control: Windows XP(SP 1)/Vista/7/8

Distribution method: shareware (seven-day demo version - https://www.supereasy.net/en/usd/dld/0008/SuperEasy-Photo-Booster/)

Price:$19.95

SuperEasy Photo Booster is a very simple utility for automatically improving the quality of photos. The program recognizes those areas of the photo that may look better and optimizes them automatically, adjusting the brightness, saturation and contrast of the image, setting the correct white balance, adjusting the brightness in light and dark areas. The result is approximately the same as in the case of image processing in PhotoPerfect Express using the RGBMax optimization algorithm.

To correct one image, just open it and, if necessary, change the optimization level (Fig. 5); in case of batch processing, a folder is specified instead of a file, in addition, you need to configure the conversion parameters and then start the process. The resulting images are saved in JPG and BMP formats.

Rice. 5. Automatic photo correction in SuperEasy Photo Booster

Comprehensive solutions for image processing

There are many solutions for photo processing on the market, including various types of photo editors and photo organizers. The functionality of such programs, as well as the complexity of their development, can be very different. It makes sense for advanced amateur photographers to pay attention to the rather serious photo editors Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel PaintShop Pro; for beginners, it is wiser to choose easier-to-use tools, for example, the Home Photo Studio program or the Picasa photo organizer.

Any of these solutions provides a traditional set of features for conveniently managing photo collections and editing images. In terms of editing, not only basic operations are available (resizing photos, rotating, cropping, etc.), but also more complex actions with the connection of a wide range of technical tools (changing angles, eliminating optical and perspective distortions, correcting incorrect exposure settings , enhancing image sharpness, correcting poor color rendering, etc.) and artistic retouching (applying effects, imposing frames, etc.). Also, these solutions provide one or another toolkit for automatic photo correction. Optimizing images with its help is not difficult, although in any case you will first have to devote some time to familiarize yourself with the selected application (especially for Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel PaintShop Pro). However, the results of auto-correction in such solutions, with the possible exception of the product from Adobe, are not as impressive as when using specialized programs for improving images.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 12

Developer: Adobe Systems Inc

Distribution size: 1.08 GB

Work under control: Windows XP(SP3)/Vista(SP2)/7/8; there is a version for Macintosh

Distribution method: http://www.adobe.com/downloads/)

Price:$99.99 (Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 in the Allsoft.ru online store from RUB 2,121.52)

Adobe Photoshop Elements is a comprehensive tool for organizing and editing digital photos. The application includes two modules: an organizer and a graphic editor, the latter is a simplified version of the famous professional graphic editor Adobe Photoshop, aimed at amateur photographers. The built-in organizer lets you import, manage, view and search photos and video clips (you can organize your photos by people, location and events), and provides easy ways to display (create photo albums, gift wall calendars, cards, etc.) and share your photos online . The graphic editor includes a traditional set of tools for this kind of solutions (brush, pencil, gradient, etc.), can work with selected areas and masks, supports layers (including adjustment layers and fill layers) and includes an extensive library of effects.

The graphic editor is designed for detailed correction of photographs and can work in one of three modes: fast Quick, controlled by Guided (with the output of recommendations that simplify the application of operations) and Expert mode. The tools for quick automatic correction that are of interest in this article are available in quick mode. First of all, this is the so-called “smart correction” Auto Smart Fix, with which, with one click of the mouse, you can adjust the color balance and improve the display of shadows and light areas, and therefore the overall appearance of the image as a whole. The result of such a correction is usually quite impressive (Fig. 6). In this mode, tools are also available for auto-correction of Auto Levels (adjusts the overall contrast of the image and may affect its color), Auto Contrast (adjusts the overall contrast of the image without affecting its color), Auto Color (provides adjustment of saturation and color tones - Fig. 7) and Auto Sharpen sharpness (provides increased detail). In addition, the “quick” mode has tools for red-eye removal, teeth whitening and stain removal, although these operations are performed manually.

Rice. 6. Smart Adjustments in Adobe Photoshop Elements

Rice. 7. Automatically adjust saturation in Adobe Photoshop Elements

As for the batch mode, Adobe Photoshop Elements provides the ability to process multiple files (File ® Process Multiple Files), during which images can be improved (the Quick Fix panel is responsible for the corresponding operations - Fig. 8) and, if necessary, supplemented with watermarks. Also, with batch processing, it is possible to automatically rename files, reduce their size and convert.

Rice. 8. Batch image correction in Adobe Photoshop Elements

Corel PaintShop Pro X6

Developer: Corel Corporation

Distribution size: 237.5 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/Vista/7/8

Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo - http://www.corel.com/corel/category.jsp?cat=cat4130131&rootCat=cat3520071)

Price:$99.99 (Allsoft.ru version of Corel PaintShop Pro X5 from RUB 3,165.94)

Corel PaintShop Pro is a comprehensive solution for organizing and processing images, designed for a wide range of users. This solution includes an integrated organizer and a graphic editor. The organizer provides organization and management of a photo collection (supports facial recognition technology and linking pictures to a map manually or based on GPS data), as well as the creation of stylish photo projects (photo albums, collages, postcards, calendars, slideshows, etc.) with the ability to publish them on YouTube , on Facebook or Flickr. In turn, the graphic editor supports layers, masks and alpha channels and comes with large sets of gradients, masks, fill patterns, textures, frames, tubes, shapes and brushes. It brings together a wide range of photo enhancement tools, as well as multiple framing options, an impressive array of built-in effects and filters, and naturalistic Art Media Tools.

Corel PaintShop Pro offers three workspaces: Manage, Adjust, and Edit. The first allows you to view, organize and search for photos; the Adjust and Edit workspaces provide the ability to edit pictures using the built-in graphic editor - both, among other things, also provide tools for automatic correction. These are the One Step Photo Fix (one-step photo correction) and Smart Photo Fix (intelligent photo correction) functions. The One Step Photo Fix function is responsible for adjusting exposure and white balance, and using the Smart Photo Fix function, the level of brightness, shadows, highlights and saturation is adjusted automatically or by connecting sliders. The results of such correction can be different - sometimes photographs visually look noticeably better than the original ones, although, in our opinion, they are often too bright (Fig. 9). In other cases, especially when processing images taken in bright sunlight and with very pronounced areas of light and shadow, the resulting images are not at all pleasing to the eye. So it all depends on the source material. As for batch processing, the functionality provided in this plan only allows you to rename and convert images.

Rice. 9. “Intelligent” auto photo correction in Corel PaintShop Pro

"Home photo studio"

Developer: AMS Software

Distribution size: 57.35 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/Vista/7/8

Distribution method: shareware (10-day demo version - http://amspark.ru/HomeStudio.exe)

Price: from 690 rub.

“Home Photo Studio” is a simple editor for processing pictures. The program includes a minimal set of tools for working with photos and is aimed at beginner amateur photographers. With its help, you can crop pictures and level the horizon on them, change brightness and contrast, adjust color balance, etc. In addition, you can apply frames and masks to images, add shadows and a three-dimensional outline, and create postcards and calendars based on images.

Automatic correction tools built into the program (menu Image® Improvement catalog or the use of appropriate scripts) allow you to eliminate the most typical defects - improve photos that are too dark or, conversely, too light, make photos with faded and dull colors brighter, etc. As a result of auto-correction, images often look really better (Fig. 10). Batch processing of files is supported, and during this process, along with renaming and converting files, it is possible to apply scripts from the “Photo Enhancement” group to them.

Rice. 10. Automatic shadow correction in the “Home Photo Studio” program

Picasa 3.9

Developer: Google

Distribution size: 14.3 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/Vista/7

Distribution method: freeware (http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasa39-setup.exe)

Price: for free

Picasa is a popular photo organizer integrated with Picasa web albums. The program combines tools for cataloging photographs (based on albums and “People” collections) and publishing them (creating photo collages, burning photos to a CD, publishing in Blogger, etc.), viewing and simply editing photos. Built-in editing tools allow you to resize images, rotate them, crop them, and also perform a number of image correction operations (removing red-eye, adjusting brightness, contrast, etc.). It is possible to apply filters and effects.

The simplest auto-correction is implemented in the program, although to a minimum. These are the “I’m Feeling Lucky!” functions. (provides color and contrast correction), “Auto Contrast Correction” and “Auto Color Correction”. The results of automatic image optimization can be quite satisfactory (Fig. 11), but more often than not they are not pleasing to the eye, although some positive changes in the images usually take place. As for batch processing, in Picasa in batch mode you can only export images to a folder with their renaming and resizing.

Rice. 11. Successful use of the “I’m feeling lucky!” function in Picasa

Conclusion

If you are not eager to delve into all the details of image correction technology and are limited in time, then you cannot do without software tools for automatic image optimization (after all, you still want your photos to look more attractive). By connecting one of the solutions with similar functionality to your business, you can easily improve the quality of your photos without any problems. Moreover, in a minimum amount of time, even with a large number of images in case of batch processing. Another situation is also possible (albeit, subject to appropriate user preparation) - mass processing of ordinary photos (vacation photos, from a party, etc.) with auto-correction tools, along with the finishing of individual, outstanding, in the user’s opinion, photos manually.

As for solutions for quickly improving captured images, in our opinion, it is preferable to use highly specialized programs that provide higher quality optimization and are more convenient for solving this specific problem than complex software products for image processing.