A quick test of Piccure+

[Hening Bettermann]

I did a quick test of Piccure+ (piccureplus.com).
The image was shot with a Contax Vario Sonnar 28-70 on an a7r1 at f/8, 1/80 sec, 100 ISO;
 processed with Iridient at "all-zero" settings, except Extreme Highlight Recovery +24, max TC (I think this means 'tonal correction'), output in a linearised version of ProPhoto (LargeRGB-elle-V2-g10.icc).
The Piccure preview allows a max enlargement of 400%, so this was chosen for comparison.
The results are displayed in PhotoLine.
The screen shots are from an Eizo CG243W (96 ppi) and show the following:

1- Piccure recommended settings for f/5.6-22: quality [= middle], optical aberrations micro, no sharpening.
2- Piccure quality+, optical aberrations strong, CA checked, sharpening 20%.
3- 3- displayed in PhotoLine with 'Mark extrem values'. (0.1% level).Shadow clipping shown in light blue.
4- Iridient CA correction red/cyan -6, blue yellow 0, then defringed in RawTherapee with radius 0.6, threshold 0. Then back to Iridient, sharpened with Richardson-Lucy r=0.5, 10 iterations. No tone curve.

It looks to me like Piccure+ relies on an extreme increase in contrast, that pushes shadows into clipping. The removal of CA seems no better than my manual effort in Iridient.

[jrp]

Well what are your conclusions?  From your sample, the tool does give a slight contrast / sharpness boost at the micro level, but is it noticeable at normal viewing distances or Instagram pictures?

[Hening Bettermann]

My conclusions:
1- the setting they recommend for an image shot with a good camera and lens at f/5.6..22 are inferior to what I can achieve with other tools.
2- attempt to improve the result by exaggerating their settings leads to shadow clipping (no not only on the micro level, as the clipping warnings show.) This will be visible at every viewing distance.
3- I saved 100 $. (My concern is not images on Instagram.)

Good light!

[Hening Bettermann]

Hmm, I don't know what's going on, image #3 does open on my Mac. As for the resolution, well these are screen shots from an Eizo ColorEdge CG243W, screen resolution 96 ppi.
- Good light!

[picc_pl]

Hello,

thank you very much for your feedback. First of all - piccure+ is not a "sharpening tool" per se. It tries to reverse optical aberrations (which cause the image to look blurry). If there are very little optical aberrations, there is not so much piccure+ can do. It complements existing tools. At f/8, diffraction is the problem, so we recommend the setting "Micro"(handbook). However, whether the picture really suffers from diffraction is hard to tell. Second, there are 100 settings for "sharpness" - if you feel that the change in contrast is too large go for setting 1 or 2 instead of 20. We do not want to limit the users too much - as to give them more freedom. It is certainly very easy to find settings which are "displeasing". Third, I do not quite understand the value of zooming in 400% to evaluate image quality at 72/96 dpi which will later be printed at (ideally) 300 dpi. Its like looking very very closely at a painting and complaining about structure etc. - even though the overall appearance is a completely different one at some distance. Also, unless your monitor is calibrated for the color profile you use (which I assume you did) and has in essence has the ability to display the entire Gamut of the color space (which also should come close to print) - probably you can't really evaluate an image accurately. I know forums are digital and you can't include a physical print - however, for the sake of completeness we just raise the question "for which medium are you optimising the image?"

There are quite a few well known photographers focusing on fine art and high res images (architecture/landscape) who actually like us a lot - and tested it on more than one image. I can understand that you are not happy and may not have found the improvements you were looking for - but I do not quite know what general conclusions you can draw from one image. There are many threads on other photography forums (e.g. dpre***.com, uglyhedhe***.com) which come to quite different conclusions. Readers may also google the reviews from thephotovideoguy, Michael Frye, Keith Cooper, mikepasini (a quite comprehensive list is on our FB page). But allow me to challenge the generalisability you are drawing from one image at one setting. I certainly don't doubt that you achieved these results at the settings you presented and you were not happy with the quality - but I never quite understood the motivation of people posting reviews/evaluations of products they haven't used for some time and who make very generalised conclusions based on one specific example.

I appreciate and value your opinion and feedback. However, we feel like we need to point out a few other sources that came to different conclusions as to balance out your generalised conclusions a little bit. I won't start any argument here - but we need to keep our engineers and developers on a payroll and the message you are rather explicitly sending across is "don't try or even buy their product". So in essence you are trying to put us, our employees, our and their families out of business. Based on one sample image at 400% magnification. I think it's fair to include a few counter-examples in this case (which are not from us - but LuLa forum users). We can't argue with anybody who doesn't like it - and we don't force anybody into buying it. There is a 30 days free trial, no strings attached. We can post as many nice things about us as we like - still we wouldn't sell a copy if people didn't like it. So we don't do those things.

There are a few other threads in this forum covering piccure+ (and having more than one sample image):
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=106802.msg885397#msg885397
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=99116.msg812129#msg812129
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=102750.msg844311#msg844311
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=95887.msg784119#msg784119

It is correct that CA correction is not piccure+'s biggest strength - we actually recommend in the handbook to correct CA (if that is possible) during RAW import.

Best,
Lui
Co-Founder

[Hening Bettermann]

Hi Lui,

a quick reply to a long defense.

I called my post for "a quick test", and that's what it is. I did not draw any explicit conclusions before another participant asked for them. And I did not argue against any other experiences which are more favourable. Of course, a single little test like this is not a comprehensive review, but a limited experience, and mine did not pretend anything else. On this background, I think calling my intention for "the message you are rather explicitly sending across is "don't try or even buy their product". So in essence you are trying to put us, our employees, our and their families out of business." seems a bit exaggerated.

As to the 400% enlargement: Do YOU judge deconvolution/sharpening and CA correction at the viewing magnification of the screen?? Well I don't. This has little to do with the final viewing size. And by the way: If the print resolution is 360 dpi (not 300), then that's close to 400% of the screen resolution (96 ppi)...

I'm sure you will sell your product to a lot of people based on the more extensive reviews you link to, and fine that is. But allow me to post my own experience, even if it's a limited one.

Good light!

[picc_pl]

Hello,

thank you for your post,

On this background, I think calling my intention for "the message you are rather explicitly sending across is "don't try or even buy their product". So in essence you are trying to put us, our employees, our and their families out of business." seems a bit exaggerated.

Well not quite... I think the conclusions you are drawing and recommendations you make are quite straight forward - should people be motivated trying out our solution after your conclusions and make their own opinion? You do use a lot of fancy words and vocabulary to make it sound like a very thorough review...

My conclusions:
1- the setting they recommend for an image shot with a good camera and lens at f/5.6..22 are inferior to what I can achieve with other tools.
2- attempt to improve the result by exaggerating their settings leads to shadow clipping (no not only on the micro level, as the clipping warnings show.) This will be visible at every viewing distance.
3- I saved 100 $. (My concern is not images on Instagram.)

And I think you got the math wrong:

As to the 400% enlargement: Do YOU judge deconvolution/sharpening and CA correction at the viewing magnification of the screen?? Well I don't. This has little to do with the final viewing size. And by the way: If the print resolution is 360 dpi (not 300), then that's close to 400% of the screen resolution (96 ppi)...

Actually, if you compare 300 pixels on print that equals 1 inch (300 dots PER inch). At 96 dpi, those 300 pixels equal 3.125 inch. So if you view the image on screen, you should move away about 3x as far from the screen as from a printed image to get a more accurate impression. As a rule of thumb, choosing a zoom of 25% gives you a good impression what the image will look in print at 96 dpi (not 400%). I personally prefer Retina displays - they are very good for this purpose (100% enlargement, >200 dpi). At the 400% you propose, 300 pixels equal 12.5 inches on the screen (vs 1 inch in print). You are certainly right, that with the higher magnification more details become visible - however, you would have to move about 4m away from your screen to get the same impression as viewing print from 30cm. At 400% magnification, every pixel becomes 16 pixels. So unless you move further away, the impression will be a wrong one. I am assuming 300 dpi for print here.

As your post is intended to harm our reputation and harm us financially, we need to respond.

Have a nice week.
Lui

[Damon Lynch]

But allow me to post my own experience, even if it's a limited one.

To be honest Hening when I first read your thoughts about Piccure+ I was somewhat taken aback by their cursory nature. It seemed to me then that you'd  evaluated the program neither fairly nor effectively.

How would you feel if I met someone precious to you for the first time in a loud party, spent five minutes in casual banter with them, and then told everyone else in the party that he or she was worthless liar? You'd have every right to feel aggrieved.

If you're so inclined, you might like to give the program another go on some other images that are representative of the kind of work you like to print, and share your results here. Perhaps you can bring some fresh viewpoints to the Lula-hosted conversation we all take part in.

[Tim Lookingbill]

Hello,
 You do use a lot of fancy words and vocabulary to make it sound like a very thorough review...



As your post is intended to harm our reputation and harm us financially, we need to respond.

Have a nice week.
Lui

Wow! This is the first time I've seen someone from a software company respond in this manner.

You not using your real name to criticize using a very unprofessional and inappropriately petty tone to address a long time trusted LuLa member isn't sweetening the pot or making converts here. I have an advertising background most of it learned by gut, instinct and hard knocks in dealing with people and something smells fishy here.

You lack a basic understanding of marketing and human behavior which makes me think you may be one of those online 'bots' and not a real person or you're autistic. I can't tell which.

[rdonson]

Tim, I'm sorry but don't agree with your take. 

If you take a look at the piccure+ website you'll see the company is small and from Germany.   http://relaunch.piccureplus.com/about-us/

I seriously doubt that Liu is a bot.  If I had to guess I'd say he or she is most likely a Ph.D co-founder as claimed, with the best intentions. 

While Henning said his work was a first impression it seems a stretch to harshly criticize the product from a single test.  If someone took the same approach to Photoshop or Lightroom or any of the many tools forum members use here there would likely be an avalanche of responses. 

I hope that Henning does some more learning and testing to be a better feel for the product and reports again.

[Hening Bettermann]

[...] Perhaps you can bring some fresh viewpoints to the Lula-hosted conversation we all take part in.

I assume you are referring to this thread:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=99116.msg812129#msg812129
and I agree that I should have posted there rather than opening a new thread. If I had, it might have been more obvious, that this was intended as a contribution, not as the ultimate review on the subject.

If I browse all the 4 threads Lui links to above, I see that others' basis for their judgement ranges from regular use over a couple of days down to 15 minutes or unspecified ('gave up soon'), some of them without any sample images. So my own 2 cents fall into the lower third of contributions - but nobody attacked the others.

May I rephrase what I consider the outcome of my little test: If I increase the settings to give a result that looks sharper than my comparison, this is achieved by an increase in overall contrast, and this is not what I want. (No the result was not 'unpleasing', I didn't say that.)

Sorry but I will not promise to use more time on testing this program.

Good light!

[Tim Lookingbill]

Tim, I'm sorry but don't agree with your take. 

If you take a look at the piccure+ website you'll see the company is small and from Germany.   http://relaunch.piccureplus.com/about-us/

I seriously doubt that Liu is a bot.  If I had to guess I'd say he or she is most likely a Ph.D co-founder as claimed, with the best intentions. 

While Henning said his work was a first impression it seems a stretch to harshly criticize the product from a single test.  If someone took the same approach to Photoshop or Lightroom or any of the many tools forum members use here there would likely be an avalanche of responses. 

I hope that Henning does some more learning and testing to be a better feel for the product and reports again.

I've already visited the website when I first heard of this app. I'm not knocking the product but I do have a problem with anyone starting a business accusing ONE GUY giving a quick review of a product of damaging their reputation for what amounts to a one time opinion. And this response just threw me for a loop and left me scratching my head...

I won't start any argument here - but we need to keep our engineers and developers on a payroll and the message you are rather explicitly sending across is "don't try or even buy their product". So in essence you are trying to put us, our employees, our and their families out of business. Based on one sample image at 400% magnification.

I"m from German ancestry but I know I have enough sense not to post that kind of response especially if I'm trying to start a business. Try to offer a solution, not an argument on what amounts to an opinion. One guy posting online is going to put you out of business?! Are you kidding?!

[GrahamBy]

It's understandable that someone from a small company is a bit emotionally attached to it, and doesn't respond according to the PR "how to talk while not offending anyone" manual. And I'm thankful for that. I do think the OP was possibly over-confident in suggesting he'd seen and explored all Piccure has to offer and found it didn't work. He seemed rather self-congratulatory in concluding that he'd saved himself $100, whereas it was the free-trial offer that allowed him to make that choice... it seems a little ungrateful to me. Being a long-term Lula member doesn't change that.

Personally, I tried Piccure for its camera-shake deconvolution. It didn't really help with the problem I had, but I only experimented for a couple of hours. There is a fairly generous free-trial period.

[Jack Hogan]

Part of it may be misplaced use and expectations.  Many people here use deconvolution as a early capture sharpening step on sharp images captured with excellent technique, as they would InFocus, Focus Magic or other similar product.  The Company says clearly that that's NOT the primary objective of their tool and other products are better suited for that.

Jack

[marcmccalmont]

If you read my post I had a very different experience and think Piccure+ does a great job, wish it was $49 to be competitive with other sharpening plugins though
Marc

[rdonson]

If you read my post I had a very different experience and think Piccure+ does a great job, wish it was $49 to be competitive with other sharpening plugins though
Marc

I'm with you Marc especially since $79 gets you ONE activation and as I read it I'd need to spend $119 so that I could have a functioning copy on both my MBP and iMac.  That's a little steep for amateurs like me.

[robgo2]

Wow! This is the first time I've seen someone from a software company respond in this manner.

You not using your real name to criticize using a very unprofessional and inappropriately petty tone to address a long time trusted LuLa member isn't sweetening the pot or making converts here. I have an advertising background most of it learned by gut, instinct and hard knocks in dealing with people and something smells fishy here.

You lack a basic understanding of marketing and human behavior which makes me think you may be one of those online 'bots' and not a real person or you're autistic. I can't tell which.

This is not the first time that Liu has responded to online criticism in this manner. On another forum, he attacked me aggressively for some negative comments that I had made about Picture+. Obviously, the man regards all criticism of his product as being malicious.  It would be fine if his responses were limited to technical explanations and practical advice, but he cannot restrain himself from making unjustified personal attacks upon his critics. It's too bad, because the software might be great for those who learn how to use it correctly. I simply gave up trying.

Rob

[Paul2660]

Some of the confusion may be English and German translation. 

I picked up on Piccure + about 2 months ago, and find it to be a great tool, albeit, extremely slow on all files, when compared to Focus magic or other such tools.  But on Fuji files and Phase One files to me it was worth the investment.  Nikon D800x files it seems a bit different, but still working on them. 

One thing you learn real quick, Don't preview as it takes as long to preview as process, just create a layer, and process, then control amount from the layer. 

I also agree that for the price, it should allow more installations, I can't remember if it's 1 or 2 only.  I paid the 109.00 price.  But sure wish they could figure out a better way to process out files faster.  One average 6 to 8  minutes for a 3 part D810 pano, 4 to 6 minutes for a 4 part Fuji and a RRReal long time for a multipart stitch from Phase One.  8 vs 16 bit also seems not to matter on the speed.

Paul C

[picc_pl]

This is not the first time that Liu has responded to online criticism in this manner. On another forum, he attacked me aggressively for some negative comments that I had made about Picture+. Obviously, the man regards all criticism of his product as being malicious.  It would be fine if his responses were limited to technical explanations and practical advice, but he cannot restrain himself from making unjustified personal attacks upon his critics. It's too bad, because the software might be great for those who learn how to use it correctly. I simply gave up trying.

Rob

Here is the link to the thread:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/56460924

Here is the text for the lazy readers. I did not "attacking aggressively" - but I politely offered you a refund in case you were not satisfied. Also I tried to understand why you sent us a lot of positive feedback but started criticize us  publicly in multiple forums.

Regarding Piccure, it is a slow and cumbersome program that must be used with great care so as not to produce artifacts. At least that has been my experience.

Rob

And my overly aggressive response:

Dear Mr. Goldstein,

we certainly do appreciate any feedback - especially when it comes from our customers. However, we have never received any feedback like this from your side in private. We have been in touch before - and you had a lot of positive feedback for us and ultimately bought the software.

However, for some reason whenever our product is discussed in any forum you complain about it and badmouth it (not only in this forum, but also others). I do not quite understand your motivation to do so to be honest. You tested piccure+ extensively prior to purchasing.

We certainly give you a refund if you really don't like our software (support@piccure.zendesk.com) but I do not understand why you don't talk with us first - but leave us under the impression you like the product.

Aside from that the positive comments on DPReview (simply search 'piccure+') outweigh the negative ones...

Have a nice week.

Lui

Co-Founder piccure+

Intelligent Imaging Solutions GmbH - Hintere Grabenstr. 30 - 72070 Tübingen - Germany - CEO: Prof. Dr Hanns Ruder