New RapidFixer Control Discussion

[peterkrogh]

Let's use this thread to discuss what improvements can be made to RapidFixer.

I'm thinking about what controls to add  for the next update. Two things jump out at me for user input - Color Temp/Tint presets and Split Toning presets.  If anyone has requests, post them here.  These presets will be what you get in the pulldown menu on the top bar. I'm thinking about something like additional daylight presets or additional Fluorescent, or other creative color settings.

As to Split toning, I think maybe there are two different kinds.  I made the existing ones for B&W toning, and I'd like more of these. I'm also interested in Split Toning values that could work for color images.

Anyway, I'm happy to consider anything that you users want here.

Peter

[danaltick]

Peter,

A larger array with a few more HSL controls would be nice for me.  I assume that's still planned.

I'm curious though why you are unable to retrieve the "As Shot" setting for white balance.  Isn't ACR able to retrieve that?

Dan

[peterkrogh]

Dan,
That's a "floating" setting - one that gets refigured slightly as Thomas and Zalman tune the algorithm in later versions. It's not written to the XMP data, so there's no way to get the current value passed off to us to modify. (I think thats what's happening).

Adobe would have to open up some hooks in ACR for us to work with that. 
Peter

[danaltick]

I see.  Makes sense.  I suppose trying to use an algorithm like that in RF would be overly complex.

Dan

[markpirozzi]

First I would like to say that your movie for the RF CS2 version changed the way I modify RAW files.  I was always thinking Photoshop even though I only brought a small percentage of files into PS.  I left editing room on the 'Blacks' end which made the photo look really flat when using the Fill control.  After watching RF CS2 movie I've changed from using the Brightness often to using a Fill/Blacks combo in its place most of the time.

User input on the WB was what I had in mind before your first post. My Daylight (Sunny) setting in ACR is usually about 5000 and almost always with a negative Tint.  5500, +10 is far off for me and have been tending to avoid the WB control for sunny shots.  My only real disappointment in RF is that you can't start from a user default WB.  How about an even 5000, 0 setting in the drop down menu?  I am assuming the user can't add to the drop down list.

With a 1280x1050 resolution monitor, there is room for one more set of controls on the top (with metadata panel open too) - however I vote to modify Orange and Blue HSL controls.  These 2 are extremely useful.  I would like to see some of the extra available space used for a small increment button for Hue and Sat for Orange - when the skin tones looks a little pink, I usually end up with a Hue setting for the Orange a little less than 10, so I would like to see fine a control of 4 or 5 or just one control of 4 or 5.  Hue is more important than Sat if I have to chose one.  For the Blue, I would like to see the Hue have an increment of 5.

I would prefer the small increments of Saturation to be smaller than 10.  Ten is fairly big for Saturation. (When I hover over the reduce Saturation by 10, the tool tip says reduce by 25, it does reduce by only 10 though.)

The Fill, Exposure, Blacks, Clarity increments are working well for me.  I wish you had stayed with the name Recovery - I keep going to Highlights instead of Exposure for some reason, but I'll learn my lesson eventually.

Mark

[Ray]

Maybe the option to retrieve our existing presets from RF? I have certain presets that I use all the time as a baseline, then I use RF to do minor tweaks.

[peterkrogh]

Ray,
That was one I thought of, but instead of making a new menu element, I suggest that you right-click on the image(s) to get access to these.  Since the functionality would be exactly the same, I don't see a real advantage of taking the space for a new menu item.
Peter

[markpirozzi]

I think the small increment (5) adjustment for Tint (WB) is too much.

I'm happy to find out that Temp and Tint work without selecting something in the drop down menu first as long as you have made an adjustment prior.  Selecting all the files and bumping one of the adjustments such as Clarity, Fill, Blacks, Brightness, etc, by 1 is all it takes.

Mark

[peterkrogh]

Mark,
In order to do this, are you opening the images in Camera Raw first, and then making a change to a setting?

I see that by doing this it does set an absolute value for the Temp and Tint. 

(If I make the change to, say, Fill Light, using RapidFixer in the Bridge window, it does not set a value for Temp and Tint to the ACR settings.)

I'll see if I can get Thomas to give us a way to se the temp and tint as absolute values in a future version.

Peter

[markpirozzi]

I noticed somehow I doing something in my workflow that allowed me to make changes using the Temp or Tint adjustments without using the drop down first.  Tonight I tried opening copies of backup Raw files  that had never been opened.  Your question made me realize that my test was on a few files opened in CR at a time, but my scheme is to apply a token change to a whole folder of images so that they will all be ready for the Temp and Tint controls.  I just tried saving a token setting (for Develop Settings) of 3 for Blacks (2 is currently my default ) and called it Initialize Rapid Fixer.  I selected a group of photo thumbs in Bridge, right clicked to get to Develop Settings and then selected Initialize Rapid Fixer.  Those files were then ready to accept Temp/Tint changes by Rapid Fixer - they don't have to be opened for this to work - just wait for the changes to be written.

The way I understand it, Fill and some other settings have to compute a mask for a file the first time they are changed for that file, so using Blacks for the token change might be a faster choice for a whole folder full files.  I assume you could have 1 as your default and then "Initialize" to 0 if you like to start from 0.  If you always use Fill in Rapid Fixer, it might be better to make the token change to Fill so that the mask computation is done up front.

Mark

[markpirozzi]

Peter,

I meant to address my above email to you.

mark

[Chris Bishop]

It's a great program (script), but you knew that.
Would it be possible to set an option as to which sliders are visible. I can't always see them all on screen, it depends on the view I have set up. If you are adding more, I'd definately need to de-select some.
It would also be "clever" if the options could be preset, so if I wanted split toning then I wouldn't need eg WB & tint (already tweaked?)  so a quick option/command key stroke plus would switch to another RF layout.
Chris Bishop

[danaltick]

Mark,

Until Thomas Knoll puts a fix in for this, that sounds like a good workaround.

Dan

[peterkrogh]

Mark,
The issue is that Camera Raw stores the WB as the setting (As Shot) when the default is first applied.  By opening the file in ACR and doing *anything* you force ACR to compute the As Shot value, and the Temp and Tint get actual numbers.

Thomas designed it this way so that he can refine how the As Shot setting is interpreted.  (So images that have the As Shot setting don't have a fixed value, since he might do a future refinement to the color matrix that does a better job interpreting the As Shot WB.)

Once you have a fixed value for Temp and Tint, we can start moving those numbers. 

I'm not seeing what you are seeing.  If I make a saved subset of ACR settings, and apply them, it does not seem to change the WB to fixed numbers (it still shows in the sidecar as As Shot).  The only way I can force this to happen is to save the *entire* group of Camera Raw settings.  Unfortunately, this means that we'd be taking the WB to whatever the WB was for the image you saved the settings off of.  (This is essentially what the drop-down does.)

Is this what you are seeing?  When you are saving your settings, are you saving WB as part of the saved settings?  If so, you'll find that it will be a wrong WB for images that were shot under different light.

It does make me wonder if there's a way to for ACR to compute the WB values with RapidFixer so that we can get the desired behavior.
I'll check.

Peter

[markpirozzi]

Peter,

This may explain our discrepancy.  My Camera Raw Default for a D200 includes a WB of 5200, -5.  The WB section in ACR shows "Custom" not "As Shot" before a sidecar is even written.  Also, I would like to add that any subsequent change I make in ACR sticks.  RF's Temp/Tint will not work when I first open a file with just the default settings applied. But, if I apply a subset of only one adjustment, such as Brightness, Blacks, etc., RF's Temp/Tint will work.

If you have the Metadata Panel open in Bridge, no settings for CR will be visible with just the Defaults, but as soon as you apply any one or more adjustments, all the settings will be appear and RF is fully operable.

Peter's comments:
I'm not seeing what you are seeing.  If I make a saved subset of ACR settings, and apply them, it does not seem to change the WB to fixed numbers (it still shows in the sidecar as As Shot).  The only way I can force this to happen is to save the *entire* group of Camera Raw settings.  Unfortunately, this means that we'd be taking the WB to whatever the WB was for the image you saved the settings off of.  (This is essentially what the drop-down does.)

My response:
Hopefully my initial paragraphs describe what is happening for me.  I do not need to save the entire group of CR settings - just one setting will do - I haven't tried this with settings not on the Basic tab.


Peter's comments:
Is this what you are seeing?  When you are saving your settings, are you saving WB as part of the saved settings?  If so, you'll find that it will be a wrong WB for images that were shot under different light.

My response:
Again, I do not need to save the entire group of CR settings - just one setting will do.  My default WB shows up. Since I end up tinkering with the WB settings often, there is basically no extra work starting close to my basic daylight setting.  Granted, if I was going from skylight to fluorescent light to mixed lighting often this set-up may not be the best for me.  But starting with 5200, -5 lets me give a good starting guess for adjustments to outdoor pictures if any.  A preset for tungsten could be applied to a large group of pictures if needed, and a I assume RF would then be ready to go.

I understand why RF has to be se-up the way it is and I'm not complaining.  The workaround for me turned out to be simple since I just need to apply a token adjustment to all files in folder with a right click (and a little waiting).


****I would like for the Tint adjustments be 2 and 10 though, 5 units can very noticeable****.     My wish list would include user definable increments.


Mark