A couple of other programs

Discuss which third party applications you use to help create your slide shows using ProShow Producer. This is not a forum to promote other slide show software programs.
dnmilikan

A couple of other programs

Postby dnmilikan » Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:47 am

For those who are striving for the utmost quality in their Proshow productions, I will mention a couple of programs that I use for my photographic prints. They also have benefit for those working in slide show production.

The first is a program named Noise Ninja...this is a program that, as the name implies, very effectively filters noise from digital images. It also has the capability to sharpen an image so that the sharpening can be done coinciding with the noise reduction. Cost is $75.00 at latest report.

The second is Photomatix. This is a program that enables HDR capture and this allows one to capture a larger density range in an image which is then tone mapped so that it can be displayed on a monitor, television, or printed. The effect is an image with more shadow and highlight detail. Cost $99.00 at latest report.

A google search will turn up the links to take you to the company sites.

For those who may be interested, a search under HDR or HDRI images may prove interesting.

I have no connection to either company other than that I purchased their software.

Good luck!!!

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quality photos

Postby kaylef » Wed Dec 19, 2007 12:44 pm

thanks for the tip !

My husband is interested in this type of stuff. We will go investigate.

Kay

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Postby rkligman » Fri Dec 21, 2007 12:08 pm

I'm going to agree to disagree on both your choices. Having these kind of programs are really nice but I'm going to throw out the two *I* liked better.

I got Imagenomic's Noiseware and found it ran circles around Noise Ninja and the other one in both output and ease of use.

For HDR, I love Lucis Arts. Not quite HDR per se but much more robust thatn Photomatix and much easier to use. The problem with Photomatix, correct me if I'm wrong, is that you really need to have taken multiple images for it to work. Not so with Lucis. Of course Lucis is twice as expensive but I couldn't live without it.

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Postby Osgood » Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:33 pm

Rick,
Could you please explain a little more about HDR for those of us who don't know anything about it???

Thanks!
"Don't try to teach pigs to sing. It wastes your time, and annoys the pig."

Osgood.

dnmilikan

Postby dnmilikan » Tue Dec 25, 2007 2:09 am

Rick, No, Photomatix does allow one to use a single image...however it isn't true HDR when that happens. But a single raw image does have some applications especially where movement is a consideration. Thanks for the heads up on the noise software, I really like Noise Ninja however. On examination, the problem that I have with Lucis Art is that it renders in 8bit RGB and grayscale only (at least by their documentation) so that is a non starter for me. Photomatix has 16 bit output capability and supports raw input.
Last edited by dnmilikan on Tue Dec 25, 2007 2:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

dnmilikan

Postby dnmilikan » Tue Dec 25, 2007 2:12 am

Osgood, HDR is the merging of three or more images of the same subject or scene to allow the dynamic range of the image to include both full highlight and shadow detail. The need for software comes about because no output device other than a very high end TV (read $49,000 at last report) is capable of depicting that full tonal range. So that expanded tonal range must be rendered to be compatible with current output devices.

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Postby gpsmikey » Tue Dec 25, 2007 3:58 am

To add just a bit, from what I have seen, the three or more images you are
trying to merge are shot of the same scene at different exposure settings so
that you have an image where the highlights are not blown, one with the
mid-range values and one that has the shadow details (which would then
have no high lights info at all because it is way over exposed). Here are
a couple of links you might want to check out ...

http://beforethecoffee.wordpress.com/ph ... -tutorial/
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials ... ures.shtml
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials ... ding.shtml
http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/neut ... ensity.htm

(you can spend weeks reading Ron Bigelow's stuff !! )

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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Postby rkligman » Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:02 pm

dnmilikan wrote:Rick, No, Photomatix does allow one to use a single image...however it isn't true HDR when that happens. But a single raw image does have some applications especially where movement is a consideration. Thanks for the heads up on the noise software, I really like Noise Ninja however. On examination, the problem that I have with Lucis Art is that it renders in 8bit RGB and grayscale only (at least by their documentation) so that is a non starter for me. Photomatix has 16 bit output capability and supports raw input.


Yep, 8bit is all you get. I'm not sure I really find it a limitation though since the internet is 8bit. If I'm editing for Print then I try to stay in 16 but Lucis alters the image enough that I'm not really sure you're losing anything.

HDR is a really tricky area and when done correctly, it's super. Lucis is sort of the poor mans HDR (although the tool is quite expensive). I have never successfully put together multiple images to make a HDR image. Weird given all the editing I do. I just find Lucis so versatile. You can go ape with it, or be very subtle. I happen to float both ways depnding on what I'm trying to do.

For the Noise program, what I really didn't like about the other programs is that they want profiles or settings. Noiseware has about 6 settings, for Landscape, Portrait, Nightscape, Full. But you can go in and adjust each individual color with just a slider as to how much noise reduction you want. This was incredibly powerful when editing some concert shots where you had the colored lights. Look at the following. I wanted all the noise removed, remember, I was shooting at 1600, but normal noise reduction just took all the texture out of his face. So I cranked back Red to something like 30% and it was perfect. Cut, print. Took about 10 seconds. THAT's why I like Noiseware. Intuitive, flexible and fast. It's also why there are many programs because everybody likes different things. Glad we're both happy.

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