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Author Topic: Image Enhancement Before Printing  (Read 2819 times)

Amit

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Image Enhancement Before Printing
« on: February 04, 2014, 05:44:07 am »

Hi,

I am planning to print images on canvas using 12 colour Printer. I am facing problem with enhancing images for my clients. Adobe Photoshop need lot of patience and time.

I will be a great help if you can guide me with tools which can help enhance the images quickly.

I have heard of i2e Image enhancer(not used though) but I guess the company is not selling the software anymore.

Thanks in advance

Regards,
Amit
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2014, 06:39:37 am »

Hi,

I am planning to print images on canvas using 12 colour Printer. I am facing problem with enhancing images for my clients. Adobe Photoshop need lot of patience and time.

Hi Amit,

If you are running a printshop, and do not have the inclination to prepare all images on an individual basis, you might want to look into products such as Athentech Perfectly Clear, or Elpical Claro. But these are seriously large operation solutions, usually running from a dedicated server in a networked operating environment.

Cheers,
Bart
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TonyW

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2014, 07:22:47 am »

Amit, for me the question would be exactly what do you need to 'enhance' for printing? 

Is the image you receive from the client bad to begin with and needs a lot of work to make it look good on screen prior to printing ? Or are you looking for an automated workflow in terms of a one button press does all?

The i2E application is I think still available http://www.colour-science.com/IE/ImageEditor.htm and you may want to try the demo to see if it is fit for your purpose.

FWIW and just my opinion I am always quite sceptical of these so called automatic enhancements for colour contrast etc. etc. but I have not tried this application so I will not try and comment other than to say look at the video which seems to indicate that you are still having to make some manual adjustments.

It seems to me that you could accomplish pretty much the same equally fast in either Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw and batch process similar images

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Mark D Segal

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2014, 08:04:04 am »

Amit, if you want useful help please specify exactly what you perceive the problem to be and what kind of image enhancement you think you need. The kind of request for assistance you posted above is so vague it's close to useless if you expect advice for effective solutions.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2014, 04:53:24 pm »

Hey Bart, thanks for posting those "mass production image enhancement" companies. First I've seen of them.

Don't quite understand their target market since most of their samples are of family photos and weddings, but I always wondered when those kind of companies would start popping up.

And here I've been toiling long hours using Adobe software trying to get the results they seem to get with the click of a button. That is some sophisticated image analysis software to know just what to fix. Wonder how they do it.
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Steve House

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2014, 05:28:23 pm »

Just about every adjustment in the Lightroom develop module or the entire suite of tools available in Photoshop could be considered "image enhancement."  Without knowing exactly what he needs to fix or change, the OP's original questions are meaningless.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2014, 06:43:22 pm »

Hey Bart, thanks for posting those "mass production image enhancement" companies. First I've seen of them.

Don't quite understand their target market since most of their samples are of family photos and weddings, but I always wondered when those kind of companies would start popping up.

Hi Tim,

Some of them have been around for a while, and there are more that the two I mentioned (because I have good personal experience with them). Their target markets are diverse, but you can think about internet print facilities (photofinishing labs and photobook creators, but also newspapers and magazine/periodicals producers, such as e.g. Playboy magazine and TopGear to name a couple of popular ones). In short, anyone who needs to optimize huge amounts of images in relatively short periods of time.

Quote
And here I've been toiling long hours using Adobe software trying to get the results they seem to get with the click of a button. That is some sophisticated image analysis software to know just what to fix. Wonder how they do it.

Research and focused dedication ... But do not forget that their competences are also about doing things very fast, multithreaded, parallel processing, and networked workflow integration (to cope with the huge volumes and deadlines), so some trade-offs are involved.

Besides, a lot of things take longer than necessary in Photoshop. Some of the PS/LR Plugins are heaven sent, much better quality and faster results.

Cheers,
Bart
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Benny Profane

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2014, 09:18:50 am »

Hi Tim,

Some of them have been around for a while, and there are more that the two I mentioned (because I have good personal experience with them). Their target markets are diverse, but you can think about internet print facilities (photofinishing labs and photobook creators, but also newspapers and magazine/periodicals producers, such as e.g. Playboy magazine and TopGear to name a couple of popular ones). In short, anyone who needs to optimize huge amounts of images in relatively short periods of time.

Research and focused dedication ... But do not forget that their competences are also about doing things very fast, multithreaded, parallel processing, and networked workflow integration (to cope with the huge volumes and deadlines), so some trade-offs are involved.

Besides, a lot of things take longer than necessary in Photoshop. Some of the PS/LR Plugins are heaven sent, much better quality and faster results.

Cheers,
Bart

Huge amount? I worked for a major magazine publisher in pre press, and never did we have so many images that we needed some assembly line software to do simple cc.

Why not just sit down and learn a little Photoshop or Lightroom? it isn't all that hard, you know. Then, make your own presets and actions. But, then again, all images are different……...
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Amit

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2014, 08:10:36 am »

Hi Mark, Tony:

I was seeking some plugins for batch processing of photos image enhancement, Thanks Bart and Tony :-) you brought me to right track: I refined my search and have these in list:

1. Perfectly Clear Photoshop plug-in
2. FixFoto
3. PhotoPerfect
4. i2e

trying to get more details on these as these can be very handy.  Do you have any experience with any of these?

Amit
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TonyW

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Re: Image Enhancement Before Printing
« Reply #9 on: February 09, 2014, 10:43:11 am »

Amit,
Not sure if you are actually on the right track, but it really does depend on what exactly you are looking for in terms of image enhancement and your working environment. 

If you are running a printshop I am sure that Barts links would be a good bet to investigate further.  I have no experience of this type of application.

From your questions and limited response as to what problems you forsee and what you need to fix it is not possible to give any answer other than a guess at what you may want.

Taking the Perfectly Clear Photoshop plug-in (rather than the print management application) you are presented with a dialogue window that echoes some of the features of ACR and in some cases a click to fix mixed with slider controls.  On the face of it not offering much difference and certainly limiting fine control of images.  Is the plug-in worth $130 only you can decide but the Lightroom application which may be even easier/quicker to use for batch processing than PS costs around $100

I think it is a shame that you have spent many hundreds of dollars on an application such as PS and are not using the tools to the fullest extent, yes it does take a little effort but should offer much better control. 

My suggestion to you is to investigate corrections in PS via ACR and where appropriate applying batch conversions.

One method of using ACR for batch conversions http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/02/26/batch-processing-how-to-edit-multiple-photos-in-adobe-camera-raw/

Should you really feel that plug-in offers greater benefit then I strongly suggest that you download each demo to find out exactly what is involved and if the product brings anything useful to the table
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