Auto White Balance Plugin for JPEGs is "almost" ready

[manta1900]

Hi all,

I nearly finished beta testing (thanks to member recrisp (Randy)) an Auto white balance filter for JPEGs. You can all download this limited version of the Auto White Balance beta Filter to tell me your expert opinions.


Thanks Randy for the beta testing and your research.


P.S. Don't be gentle... I need to make it as good as possible.


Thanks in advance for your time

[manta1900]

Nobody tried my filter? Or is it so bad that you don't even bother giving a feedback? I need your feedback (even if it's negative). Me and Randy (recrisp member) did a hell of a job and we need to know if it is in vain or not.


Waiting for your feedback
John

[Bill M]

It seems to start in the correct direction which is pretty impressive, but doesn't usually go far enough. I compared it using a variety of messed up images. Sometimes autocolor would do better, sometimes worse. But a better result was always achieved using the eyedroppers in curves/levels.

[Swampy]

Looks like it's for PC's and I'm on a Mac. BTW, when I clicked on the link, it did not go to a web site or download a file. It just showed me a bunch of code.

[roger_ele]

I got diagonal black lines on the right side, it only seems to correct where the lines were. Is this on purpose?

[Syd]

I downloaded and tried your filter. Although I have only tried it on one image so far I was pretty impressed with the results. I was even more impressed when, try as I may, I couldn't replicate them with the eyedropper tools. That was until I realised your filter (in its test form) is only white balancing half of the image. So I masked off the same half of the image, used the eyedroppers and I got similiar results. Levels on part of the image will produce vastly different results from levels on the whole image because you are only taking half of the values into consideration. So, in this form, it is going to be difficult to give it a proper evaluation.

Sincerely Syd

[manta1900]

roger_ele,

This is a beta version and it only fixes half the image and draws some diagonal lines. The full version will be available soon (I have to "lock" the filter to prevent the spread). I intend to sell the filter. Whoever will help will get the filter for free (Randy "recrisp member" already earned it and will be the first one to get it).


John

[manta1900]

Originally Posted by Syd

I downloaded and tried your filter. Although I have only tried it on one image so far I was pretty impressed with the results. I was even more impressed when, try as I may, I couldn't replicate them with the eyedropper tools. That was until I realised your filter (in its test form) is only white balancing half of the image. So I masked off the same half of the image, used the eyedroppers and I got similiar results. Levels on part of the image will produce vastly different results from levels on the whole image because you are only taking half of the values into consideration. So, in this form, it is going to be difficult to give it a proper evaluation.

Sincerely Syd

Syd,

Unfortunatelly the beta version has to work this way. Eyedroppers have many disadvantages: Most of the time you try to find a "real" black, middle grey or a white point in the image... only to find out that there is no perfect one. Even if you have a grey-card in your image you will almost never get perfect results because the reflected light that reaches the card has a color (e.g. a grey-card that receives light reflected on a tree should be greenish etc). This filter was made for people who do not have time (or the skills) to color-correct their photos. I hope I will make it even better (though I think it's better that any firmware's sophisticated auto white balance) and make the life of the professionals easier.


John

[geru]

Pretty cool plug-in it works as well in PSP X as my Adobe products. Tested it on 8 or 9 (already processed) images in PSP X and on most the adjustments were subtle but impressive. On the few photo's that weren't processed the plug-in was quite impressive.

[Syd]

Okay, I have tried some more images and I have to say it really is pretty good. On each image it did a better job than Auto Color. Granted I only ran it on five images, so statistically it is not at all significant, but it is a good start. I don't pretend for a minute to understand how the code behind Auto Color works in Photoshop so, in layman's terms, how would you explain the difference between your filter and Auto Color. Specifically why does it produce better results. (Without giving away any trade secrets of course).
I think you have done a great job.

Sincerely Syd

[roger_ele]

Originally Posted by manta1900

roger_ele,

This is a beta version and it only fixes half the image and draws some diagonal lines. The full version will be available soon (I have to "lock" the filter to prevent the spread). I intend to sell the filter. Whoever will help will get the filter for free (Randy "recrisp member" already earned it and will be the first one to get it).


John

OK, then a little please about what makes it better and what would help?

The test I ran it looked good, no crashes of photoshop and no awful wierd colors. No choices in the interface to give feedback on ... without running it on lots of images and sending you copies of the ones that failed I don't know that there is much to do ...

Regards,
Roger

[manta1900]

Originally Posted by Syd

Okay, I have tried some more images and I have to say it really is pretty good. On each image it did a better job than Auto Color. Granted I only ran it on five images, so statistically it is not at all significant, but it is a good start. I don't pretend for a minute to understand how the code behind Auto Color works in Photoshop so, in layman's terms, how would you explain the difference between your filter and Auto Color. Specifically why does it produce better results. (Without giving away any trade secrets of course).
I think you have done a great job.

Sincerely Syd

Syd,

It "hopefully" gives better results because adobe's AutoColor does not take many things under consideration:

You cannot be sure that there is a grayscale point in the image (e.g. a sunset sky) so this is not what you are looking for.

The human eye preceives light different in the three color channels (Red Green and Blue) so changing the colors should follow the way our eyes can see.

You have to preserve as mutch as possible of the photo's information without changing the intended exposure.

Each of the above change significance depending on the photo.

And finally... I don't think that they spended months or work and research for this (IMHO).

[manta1900]

Originally Posted by roger_ele

OK, then a little please about what makes it better and what would help?

The test I ran it looked good, no crashes of photoshop and no awful wierd colors. No choices in the interface to give feedback on ... without running it on lots of images and sending you copies of the ones that failed I don't know that there is much to do ...

Regards,
Roger

roger_ele,

Indeed this is all someone can do if he/she wishes to help. Some comments of what's wrong would help a lot (cause I'm not a color expert... I'm just a computer programmer with photography as a hobby). That's what Randy (recrisp member) did and earned the filter... and to be mentioned in it.

John

[roger_ele]

John, Thanks, it makes a lot more sense to know you are a programmer. Anything you can share on the thought process of the plug-in, in as general as you need to to be comfortable you are not giving some other programer a heads up, might help us to pick images to test. My endurance for testing is not too many images ;-)

Roger

[manta1900]

Originally Posted by roger_ele

John, Thanks, it makes a lot more sense to know you are a programmer. Anything you can share on the thought process of the plug-in, in as general as you need to to be comfortable you are not giving some other programer a heads up, might help us to pick images to test. My endurance for testing is not too many images ;-)

Roger

Roger,

You can use images that:

1) Are severely damaged from wrong white balance (both cold and warm).
1) Are slightly damaged from wrong white balance (both cold and warm).
2) You think that they have an accurate white balance (to see if it spoils it or if it fixes it more).
3) RAW or TIFF images or any 16 or 32 bit RGB ones (I haven't tested these yet... though I support them in the code)
4) Are familiar with the photo's colors so as to be sure of what's going wrong.

You can send me the wrong ones to (manta1900(a)gmail.com) at maximum 640x480 resolution.


John

[recrisp]

The images I used in testing were all kind'a different.
I noticed that when I used it on an image that had black in it, for example, car tires, leather, and things like that, it worked perfect. Normally, if we see a shift in the shadow areas, most areas tend to go blue, this definitely helped in that.
I tried underwater images too, we know that underwater shots start losing color, and usually tend to go really blue, these were for the most part fixed. All images are different too, so some worked better than others.
I used this filter on metal too, raw metal, as in bolts, etc. This worked the best for me, 'cause the effect was so dramatic, and the outcome was perfect.

Green stuff like trees and grass were also affected, for the better, although, if you like brilliant (glowing) green trees and grass, it will make them more life-like, which means that it won't be the super bright green that might be your tastes. I don't mean this in a bad way at all, it makes the greenery look more real, that's all, which can be good, but some like to have bright greens, so take that into consideration when masking.
Skies are more realistic too, not as blue sometimes, but more true to what I see, and the good thing is, if you want a brighter this, or brighter that, you can always adjust with a mask, it's not a problem at all with me.
Flesh tones were for the most part unaffected, or the ones I tried it on were, and rainy day images always came out better.

I really don't color-correct images by the book anymore, I don't need to for what I do, I make them pleasing to my eye, but for me, I will use this, a LOT, I love it. My monitor's really close to what I am printing, so I am happy with the end results. (For these tests I did use INFO too though, so I didn't just go by my eyes only)
This filter might not be for everyone, but for the web, a novice, and quick shots that you don't want to spend the time on white-balancing, this is for you, I believe though that even a person that does this professionally could benefit from it, but there will always be people that wouldn't agree.
While it doesn't work on every image, (probably works on 95% of 'em though) I used this on many, many, many images, and not being biased at all, I would buy this filter, honest, I really like it, and I definitely see a use for this.
This is my opinion, and really, John could use more people to test it, 'cause I don't claim to be a genius about all of this, or a know-it-all, and I would like to hear others views myself. I think this is 'about' there, it might could use a slight tweaking, 'cause I gave all of the opinions I could, and your mileage may vary.

The black diagonal lines kind'a threw my eye off when I used the filter, so I always made a new LAYER to do the filter on, then I changed it to COLOR, that allowed me to see it better without the black lines. It will still be there, but just faintly, and it does 'sometimes' add a percent or two to the colors, but not enough that it threw it out of proportion.
While I don't recommend that one would use it like this as a true go-by, it does help you eye see the difference easier, then just change it back if needed.
Personally, I like the filter and I can find many images that I can use it on, my customers send me in pretty bad stuff most of the time, and so far, this is exactly what I needed, it's quick and easy, and, I'm lazy too! heheh
I could've really used this recently on a web site I made for a customer, the aforementioned "bolts" would've been fixed in a hurry had I used this filter.

Randy