Need Shadow/Highlight Control Plugin for CS2 in Form of Graphics Equalizer

J
Posted By
JOHNCHAP2
Jul 25, 2008
Views
290
Replies
10
Status
Closed
My ACDSee Pro 2 has a shadow/highlight control which in the advance mode operates like a graphic equilizer in a stereo system. It allows the user to enhance and reduce the shadows and highlights in either 5 or 9 precise bands each. It is more precise and a whole lot easier to use than the shadow/highlight control that comes with CS2 (and I believe CS3), and seems to produce better results. Is there a
[hopefully free] plugin available for CS2 or CS3 that operates the
same way?

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M
me
Jul 25, 2008
On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:27:01 -0700 (PDT), in rec.photo.digital JOHNCHAP2 wrote:

My ACDSee Pro 2 has a shadow/highlight control which in the advance mode operates like a graphic equilizer in a stereo system. It allows the user to enhance and reduce the shadows and highlights in either 5 or 9 precise bands each. It is more precise and a whole lot easier to use than the shadow/highlight control that comes with CS2 (and I believe CS3), and seems to produce better results. Is there a
[hopefully free] plugin available for CS2 or CS3 that operates the
same way?

What’s wrong either using curves and/or levels?
JM
John McWilliams
Jul 25, 2008
wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:27:01 -0700 (PDT), in rec.photo.digital JOHNCHAP2 wrote:

My ACDSee Pro 2 has a shadow/highlight control which in the advance mode operates like a graphic equilizer in a stereo system. It allows the user to enhance and reduce the shadows and highlights in either 5 or 9 precise bands each. It is more precise and a whole lot easier to use than the shadow/highlight control that comes with CS2 (and I believe CS3), and seems to produce better results. Is there a
[hopefully free] plugin available for CS2 or CS3 that operates the
same way?

What’s wrong either using curves and/or levels?

And the Highlight/Shadows adjustment, when you select to show more Options, allows infinite adjustments, and an ability to save whatever you wish as presets.


john mcwilliams
U
user
Jul 25, 2008
wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:27:01 -0700 (PDT), in rec.photo.digital JOHNCHAP2 wrote:

My ACDSee Pro 2 has a shadow/highlight control which in the advance mode operates like a graphic equilizer in a stereo system. It allows the user to enhance and reduce the shadows and highlights in either 5 or 9 precise bands each. It is more precise and a whole lot easier to use than the shadow/highlight control that comes with CS2 (and I believe CS3), and seems to produce better results. Is there a
[hopefully free] plugin available for CS2 or CS3 that operates the
same way?

What’s wrong either using curves and/or levels?

Its not the same thing as shadow/highlight. Curves operates on the whole image equally. Shadow/highlight (I’m talking CS2) first decides what is a shadow area, or a highlight. You can adjust the cutoff points. But more important, it does not decide based on individual pixels. First it makes a blurred image of the whole picture, where the blur radius is adjustable from 1 to hundreds of pixels. It then decides what is shadow or highlight based on the cutoff values you decide, from the blurred image. The result is two masks, one that selects highlight areas, one shadows. These masks are not sharp edge, the edges are feathered. You can then adjust the contrast of the highlights and shadows separately. The areas of the highlights that were near the bottom intensity can go well down into what were shadows, and the areas of shadows that were lightest can go up into what were highlights. You can also do some color saturation correction.

If you select a small blur radius for the masks, it looks like a crude old-fashioned darkroom silver mask. If you select say 400, it looks very different and much more pleasant.

This is a very useful tool for landscapes.

Doug McDonald
J
JOHNCHAP2
Jul 25, 2008
What is wrong is that using either curves or cs2’s shadows/highlights
[advanced option] does not do quite as well as the ACDSee version, and
is harder and more time consuming to use in any case. Levels won’t do the trick at all.
JJ
John J
Jul 26, 2008
JOHNCHAP2 wrote:
What is wrong is that using either curves or cs2’s shadows/highlights
[advanced option] does not do quite as well as the ACDSee version, and
is harder and more time consuming to use in any case. Levels won’t do the trick at all.

JOHNCHAP2 is a spammer promoting ACDsee.
JM
John McWilliams
Jul 26, 2008
John wrote:
JOHNCHAP2 wrote:
What is wrong is that using either curves or cs2’s shadows/highlights
[advanced option] does not do quite as well as the ACDSee version, and
is harder and more time consuming to use in any case. Levels won’t do the trick at all.

JOHNCHAP2 is a spammer promoting ACDsee.

What a surprise! He certainly doesn’t know how to post. Where did you get your info?


john mcwilliams
J
JPS
Jul 26, 2008
:

What’s wrong either using curves and/or levels?

They don’t do anything at all for local contrast.

For example, in the highlights you might want to just pull down the darker areas, and in the shadows, pull up the brighter areas.


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John P Sheehy
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J
JPS
Jul 26, 2008
John McWilliams wrote in news:ipOdnZUn-
:

John wrote:
JOHNCHAP2 wrote:
What is wrong is that using either curves or cs2’s shadows/highlights
[advanced option] does not do quite as well as the ACDSee version, and
is harder and more time consuming to use in any case. Levels won’t do the trick at all.

JOHNCHAP2 is a spammer promoting ACDsee.

What a surprise! He certainly doesn’t know how to post. Where did you get your info?

I certainly hope that you fellows in the Spammer Inquisition have ample evidence to suggest that this person is a spammer. It seems that far too many people like to label people spammers without any real proof.



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John P Sheehy
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K
KatWoman
Jul 26, 2008
"John Sheehy" wrote in message
:

What’s wrong either using curves and/or levels?

They don’t do anything at all for local contrast.

For example, in the highlights you might want to just pull down the darker areas, and in the shadows, pull up the brighter areas.


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John P Sheehy
<<> <>>< <>>< ><<> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>><

your lack of knowledge how to use curves and the other features of PS does not mean PS is inferior to whatever else prog
it means you have-not spent the time understanding how to use the options and OTOH if ACDC is so fantastic or this task JUST USE IT INSTEAD

in either RAW dialog and/or LAB MODE
you can work with gamma only

in curves in LAB also

make sure to use the advanced dialog inthe shad/highlight dialog

and PS since 4.0 you can save any setting
in any dialog
PF
Paul Furman
Jul 27, 2008
John Sheehy wrote:
:

What’s wrong either using curves and/or levels?

They don’t do anything at all for local contrast.

For example, in the highlights you might want to just pull down the darker areas, and in the shadows, pull up the brighter areas.

You can do that with curves by adding more control points and making odd shapes as needed. The advantage of curves is you see the structure of what’s being changed: you can see if the shadows are raised & highlights lowered, the midtones lose contrast (become more horizontal). Using masks as ‘user’ describes is something different. That sounds like it could be a handy tool though it’s not hard to make quick masks with a big soft eraser on curves adjustment layers… more control that way.

Curves are awkward though, I’ll grant that. One thing that helps is dragging the cursor over the image with the control key held down, you see that tone on the curve. I generally set the adjustment layer’s properties to luminosity so it doesn’t effect saturation… at a saturation layer separately if that’s desired.


Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

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