Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: BlasR on April 22, 2008, 06:50:58 am
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I like to know if any of you have it ,
if you do, what do you think about, do you like it ?
Thank you
BlasR
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Just downloaded the 15-day trial, but haven't had much time to play with it. One nice feature is that it will work as a Smart Filter atop a raw image opened in PS as a Smart Object (if only Photokit Sharpener would do this--Mr Schewe?...or do its work within LR/ACR...).
If anyone has a legitimate academic affiliation, there are a number of online vendors devoted to academic sales, which could save you $100 or so on the purchase of the plug-in.
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I've played around with a demo a little bit. The control-points are pretty innovative (if not brand-new; Nik licensed the tech to Nikon a year or so ago for CaptureNX). They make certain types of selections a breeze, that might otherwise be pretty difficult.
Having said that, the actual tonal and color controls in Viveza are somewhat crude, particularly thh color-balance controls (Red, Green, Blue sliders) which I found way too coarse to be of much use for subtle editing.
The other sticking point is the price. Control points are a novel feature but IMHO they don't come close to justifying the $249 price tag. Consider that CaptureNX sells for half as much, contains all the functionality of Viveza, and is also a full-blown RAW convertor. Granted, CaptureNX is only of use for NEF shooters, but to me it still seems like Viveza is vastly overpriced compared to most other filters.
I guess if you're in business and need to regularly make the kind of selections that control-points are tailored for, it could pay for itself in time saved. But I would strongly recommend trying out the demo before purchasing to see if its functionality would really justify the price tag for you.
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I use the NX variant of u-point. I was shocked at the price for the Photoshop plug-in . It's one of those tools, when you need it nothing else works as easily.
I do not like the workflow in Capture NX, UI is pretty bad, but for special images it works really well and u-point is part of the reason why (plus CR is challenged by NEF's).
If they charged $75 they would sell a zillion copies, at $300 most will pass. lousy marketing.
bob
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I have a registered copy of the Plug-In and have had a quick experiment with it on a few images. Not really that impressed, it seems to just be a fancy/crude way of using luminosity masks which leaves you with a lot less control than you would have using an adjustment layer in Photoshop itself.
Two screen Grabs of control points in action -
(http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/4482/picture2hx7.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/4041/picture1tt5.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
Considering the price, the user interface is very unpolished and dated, and leaves me wondering why you would need this.
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This is not necessarily a good image to use as illustration. There is a skill to be learned as to "where" and "how many" points to place. The duplicate command (CMD-D), is useful, and dragging dup points are frequently used to refine the selections.
Bob