Pages: [1] 2 3   Go Down

Author Topic: Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings  (Read 77392 times)

Guillermo Luijk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
    • http://www.guillermoluijk.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« on: November 05, 2006, 01:40:43 pm »

Hi all! I did not find an introduction area in the forum, so I'll introduce myself here: I am a 34 novice photographer living in Spain, and I registered as the Luminous Landscape has been a reference for me so many times in the last months that I wanted to find out about this forum.

I would like to show you a little but I think useful program I wrote last weekend to allow any non experienced user to easily rip B&W tonings from your favourite authors, and apply them straight into your B&W pictures or calculate a standard Photoshop .acv curve file to do the processing there. I hope you find it useful and I hope to get feedback from you all. I keep this program for free and it can be downloaded from (follow Software - Tone Hacker):
http://www.guillermoluijk.com

The program analyses a toned B&W image and obtains the RGB curves to be applied to a pure B&W picture to obtain the same tone.

This is the GUI:



The steps to achieve a toning are:

1. Use the '...' to load a toned image
2. Press 'Analyse' to analyse it and create the curves
3. Load with '...' the target picture. If it is coloured use now 'Desaturate' to desaturate it.
4. Press 'Tone' for toning.
DONE! it's really fast.

or

3b. You can as well use the option to export PS curves (.acv format straight readable from PS) and apply the "hacked" toning from inside PS.

The generated files will subsequently be stored on the same folder as the original ones. Saving the histogram and curve plots can be disabled (default).

This is an example of the results to tone a B&W landscape. We found this picture and we liked its tone:




We analyse it with Tone Hacker, and apply the curves to a pure B&W image of ours. The result is this:




Drawbacks of the program:
- At this moment this is a 8-bit files program. It can read 16-bit files, but they will be internally converted to 8-bit for processing. That means that if the toning is the last part of your whole processing it's fine, but if more manipulation has to be applied to the image after toning, the best way to preserve quality is to export the .acv curves and work with them in PS 16-bit files.
- The graphic library cannot read Greyscale 16-bit TIFF files (I think this type of file is not really a Windows standard). To do it just convert them previously to RGB or to Greyscale 8-bit and repeat the process.


Cheers.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2007, 10:23:04 am by GLuijk »
Logged

Guillermo Luijk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
    • http://www.guillermoluijk.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #1 on: November 05, 2006, 07:17:58 pm »

wow! big success      
Another example...

We have this beautifully (this is just an opinion) coloured picture:




after analysing it with Tone Hacker we obtain the following curves to be applied (Rojo=R, Verde=G, Azul=B ):





In this case we generated the PS file containing the curves, and by applying them to two pure B&W images we get:





« Last Edit: November 05, 2006, 07:19:46 pm by GLuijk »
Logged

maksim

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2006, 04:03:31 pm »

What a great program!

I only used the "save curves" feature because this way I can build a nice library of selected tones to use in PhotoShop. Thanks a lot for sharing - very useful!
Logged

Caracalla

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 156
    • http://
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2006, 07:20:31 pm »

SUPER COOL SOFTWARE!!! AMAIZING!!!

REGARDS
Logged

Pete JF

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 291
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2006, 09:46:53 pm »

Is this a pc program..not compatable with MAC? Tried to open and install but it wouldn't work.

Looks cool.
Logged

Guillermo Luijk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
    • http://www.guillermoluijk.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2006, 04:38:29 am »

Quote
Is this a pc program..not compatable with MAC? Tried to open and install but it wouldn't work.

Looks cool.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=83919\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Hey! I am glad to see some feedback. I thought no one was interested in this tool and I think it works fine!!! I would ask you all to upload your tests here to show it to others. Just 2 pictures is fine: one with the toning you wanted to recreate, and another showing how it applies to a B&W picture of yours. Come on! please make that little effort. I spent a whole night writing this

Pete JF, yes it's a PC program. Unfortunately I don't program for Mac. Is it not possible to install Windows software on a Mac?
You can however calculate the curves on any Windows PC and take them to your Mac to tone your B&W pictures there.

Cheers.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2006, 04:39:51 am by GLuijk »
Logged

Eric Myrvaagnes

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 22814
  • http://myrvaagnes.com
    • http://myrvaagnes.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2006, 10:25:28 am »

Well, I have tried downloading it several times over the last couple of days and can't get anything. I have tried Opera, Firefox, Netscape 8.1, and even (gasp) IE, with no success.

Netscape, for instance, keeps telling me that the "document has no content."

 

Eric
Logged
-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

Guillermo Luijk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
    • http://www.guillermoluijk.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2006, 02:52:08 pm »

Quote
Well, I have tried downloading it several times over the last couple of days and can't get anything. I have tried Opera, Firefox, Netscape 8.1, and even (gasp) IE, with no success.


Hi Eric, it's an .exe file, maybe it's your antivirus protection? I uploaded again as a ZIP, find it here:
TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE SERVER. KEEP COMING.

Please keep me informed. If it still doesn't work I'll email it to you.
Thanks for your interest.

Cheers.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2006, 04:24:06 pm by GLuijk »
Logged

TravellingLight

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2006, 12:58:01 am »

Hi Guillermo,

That's a nice bit of work, thanks for posting it. Here's a quick effort, applying a toning ripped off Michael Kenna's current front page and applied to one of my shots with a similar atmosphere. Subtle but effective.  



Ideas for improvements: can you make it open with a filename passed on the command line from an external program? Also, make it possible to choose a directory for saving curves.

Thanks,

Colin
« Last Edit: November 08, 2006, 12:58:55 am by TravellingLight »
Logged
Colin McKie
[url=http://www.travelling-l

Guillermo Luijk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
    • http://www.guillermoluijk.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2006, 04:09:35 am »

Hey Colin!!! I love Michel Kenna too, nice to see this example of yours (BTW beautiful picture).
Check this URL, you'll find a lot of Kenna-like stuff (including him of course):
http://www.denisolivier.com
http://www.denisolivier.com/link.php

In fact I am planning to buy a very dense ND filter to get long exposures indaylight to get these atmospheres. Water, cloud and smoke get fantastic under a long exposure (let's say some minutes). But I have calculated I need a 15 or 16 stops filter, do you know if there is any available on the market?



Thanks for your ideas, I'll keep them in mind together with other feedback. Please pass this tool to all your friends that could be interested.

Best.
Guillermo

LoisWakeman

  • Guest
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2006, 06:09:05 am »

Hi Guillermo,

Is it OK for me to post a link to the download (and this thread for explanation) to some other forums I belong to?
Logged

Guillermo Luijk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
    • http://www.guillermoluijk.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #11 on: November 08, 2006, 07:03:50 am »

Quote
Hi Guillermo,

Is it OK for me to post a link to the download (and this thread for explanation) to some other forums I belong to?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=84105\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

sure!

brianchapman

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 64
    • http://www.brianchapmanphotography.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #12 on: November 08, 2006, 12:32:31 pm »

Quote
In fact I am planning to buy a very dense ND filter to get long exposures indaylight to get these atmospheres. Water, cloud and smoke get fantastic under a long exposure (let's say some minutes). But I have calculated I need a 15 or 16 stops filter, do you know if there is any available on the market?

Guillermo, I'm using the B+W filter at 13 stops and for almost all occasions it's more than dark enough.  I'm actually planning on getting something in the range of 6-8 stops because I think it will better suit most situations.  I have not posted any day time long exposures on my web site yet but there are some examples on my flickr page.  

Also, thanks for the program!  Very impressive!  

Brian
http://www.brianchapmanphotography.com
« Last Edit: November 08, 2006, 12:34:31 pm by brianchapman »
Logged
Brian Chapman
[url=http://www.brianchapm

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2006, 12:35:09 am »

A very simple but intriguing little tool. Nice one.
Not had much time to really play with it, but I noticed a bug, it saves curves to the location I installed programme from and not where I installed it to, which is kind of weird [and annoying].
Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

Guillermo Luijk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
    • http://www.guillermoluijk.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2006, 05:14:00 am »

Quote
A very simple but intriguing little tool. Nice one.
Not had much time to really play with it, but I noticed a bug, it saves curves to the location I installed programme from and not where I installed it to, which is kind of weird [and annoying].
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=84268\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

OK fixed! now it saves the curves to the same directory as the last analysed image, which is indeed the image where the curves came from.

Anyway in the previous version it did not save the curves to any installation related location but to the location of the last loaded image. So if you loaded image1, analysed it, then loaded image2 and without analysing it press 'Save PS cuves', it would save the curves corresponding to image1 in the image2 route.
Now finally saves curves of image1 in the same route as image1, which is the logical expected behaviour.
Pleas don't ask me for a 'Save as...' option as I am not a programmer and I didn't plan this as a sofisticated and versatile software, but just as a useful tool to rip tones. And this part is very well achieved, isn't it?

Thanks for your report.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2006, 10:59:14 am by GLuijk »
Logged

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #15 on: November 09, 2006, 04:17:08 pm »

Quick work Guillermo, i'm impressed. But even better would be to put curves straight into PS curves folder. As then all images can easily access the curve rather than remembering which images have the nice curves and where they are. When you have thousands of folder, even if carefully organised, it's a pain.
But as we all have different set ups, I never use C drive for programmes or Windows for example. So I and probably others need to specify exactly where the file is saved to.
As it stands I would analyse image and then immediately export it to PS preset/curves folder.
Cheers Jez
Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

Jann Lipka

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 130
    • http://www.lipka.se
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #16 on: November 14, 2006, 01:19:53 am »

It looks like for now there is no way to download tonehacker-
it seems that it has been removed from above 2 links  ..
Any other location ?
Logged

Guillermo Luijk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
    • http://www.guillermoluijk.com
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #17 on: November 14, 2006, 03:54:17 pm »

Quote
It looks like for now there is no way to download tonehacker-
it seems that it has been removed from above 2 linksĀ  ..
Any other location ?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


The server was not working today, that is all. The file is still there. I hope tomorrow they have it fixed.

Anyway I would like to ask all those people downloading it, to give some feedback. I am sure more than 800 visits means at least 50 or 100 downloads, and no comments can be found here (good or bad). It took my time to code this program, and took more to show it to you. The only thing I ask for is some feeback or this tool will not be improved.

Best.

BTW: I have just written anothe piece of software to eliminate people from pictures automatically. This is an example. If you are interested, please, FEEDBACK.

This is the program GUI:




We take several pictures (17 in this case) using a tripod of the same scene, all full of people and traffic as these:




And in less than 3min the program produced this:




[a href=\"http://img488.imageshack.us/img488/3613/originalqp8.jpg]actual size[/url]

Find an improved version that allows to use masks here:
Amenabar
« Last Edit: November 24, 2006, 04:32:05 pm by GLuijk »
Logged

shoemount

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1
    • http://www.polarizer.ca
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #18 on: November 14, 2006, 04:49:57 pm »

Quote
BTW: I have just written anothe piece of software to eliminate people from pictures automatically. This is an example. If you are interested, please, FEEDBACK.

Are you kidding? Of course I'm interested   As far as tonehacker goes, I've spent half a day trying to track down a copy. Looks like a brilliant piece of work - both programs do, actually.
Logged

wolfnowl

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5824
    • M&M's Musings
Tone Hacker v1.0: free soft to rip B&W tonings
« Reply #19 on: November 14, 2006, 07:32:28 pm »

Quote
Anyway I would like to ask all those people downloading it, to give some feedback. I am sure more than 800 visits means at least 50 or 100 downloads, and no comments can be found here (good or bad). It took my time to code this program, and took more to show it to you. The only thing I ask for is some feeback or this tool will not be improved.

I've downloaded it but haven't had time to play with it.  Nonetheless, I do appreciate the work you put into it!

Mike.
Logged
If your mind is attuned t
Pages: [1] 2 3   Go Up