PercepTool

[alexramsay]

I notice that the last time this subject came up, during 2009, comments here and on DPreview were almost entirely negative. Does anyone have any recent experience and opinions regarding more recent versions of this plugin?

[hokuahi]

I have worked with George and was a beta tester for the latest version of PercepTool.  I find it indispensable in my work.

[feppe]

I have worked with George and was a beta tester for the latest version of PercepTool.  I find it indispensable in my work.

Does it have Secret Sauce 2.0, or is Pixie Dust already in beta?

[hokuahi]

No, and it probably wouldn't work for you even if it did.

[feppe]

Good to know that it's still Snake Oil.

[PierreVandevenne]

While I agree the naive advertorial tone of the article was a bit unfortunate and seems to have backfired in a big way, the author makes a 30 days trial version available. That's fair, don't you think? It's not as if he promised to cure all our photographic failings and asked for advanced payment.

Anyway, skipping the plugs, the article gave me food for thought about our visual perception process.

[pflower]

Well, I downloaded the demo.  I have only played with it for about an hour - just to see what it can or can't do.

I have a lot of tricky scanned B&W negs which I can't quite get right in either LR or CS5.  On some of them there was a definite improvement on others it simply appeared to increase contrast in the image without any particular advantage.

3 pictures taken with a GH2 were very definitely improved (in colour) by it and to the extent that I was unable to quite understand what had happened or come close to the effect with levels, curves, gradient masks.  There appears to be some quite sophisticated edge masking at the root of it.

Speed is not an issue - I tried a couple of 200+ MB H3D-39 images and it processed them on my iMac pretty quickly.

There is clearly something there but whether it is going to fit into (or rather change) my workflow remains to be seen. 

For those with nothing more lucrative to do, playing around with the demo might be worth the effort.

[Monito]

In the picture of the egg, does the author have the captions reversed?  The bar picture above is labelled in sequence Luminance --> Luminosity with attendant increase in contrast.  The egg is labelled in reverse with Luminosity first, on the duller lower contrast image.

[digitaldog]

...the author makes a 30 days trial version available. That's fair, don't you think?

Absolutely! I don’t understand the negative ‘snake oil’ comments when anyone can make an informed decision on their own. Now if there were no demo... but since there is, if you like it, be happy that you like it. Don’t like it, don’t buy it.

[feppe]

Absolutely! I don’t understand the negative ‘snake oil’ comments when anyone can make an informed decision on their own. Now if there were no demo... but since there is, if you like it, be happy that you like it.

Did you read the original article? I read it when it came out, and remember it reading like a 101 of bad advertorials, with outrageous claims even a snake oil salesman would blush at. I wasn't the only one: judging from the responses at that time here and elsewhere hinted at by the OP, the product quickly became the laughing stock of the plugin world - which is quite an accomplishment in itself.

I know that the photography blogosphere is an incestuous circle where everyone shares google-fu without consideration to merits of the content, so I have a pretty high tolerance, but that article was so bad reading it made me embarrassed, and I had nothing to do with it.

[digitaldog]

Did you read the original article?

Nope, does that affect the ability of the product to do something people who test it and like (or dislike)?

[Kirk Gittings]

Did you read the original article? I read it when it came out, and remember it reading like a 101 of bad advertorials, with outrageous claims even a snake oil salesman would blush at. I wasn't the only one: judging from the responses at that time here and elsewhere hinted at by the OP, the product quickly became the laughing stock of the plugin world - which is quite an accomplishment in itself.

I know that the photography blogosphere is an incestuous circle where everyone shares google-fu without consideration to merits of the content, so I have a pretty high tolerance, but that article was so bad reading it made me embarrassed, and I had nothing to do with it.

Hmmm you may not agree with George, you may think he is a bad writer, you may think he doesn't know what he is talking about.........blah blah etc. etc............but George is without question a very accomplished and popular workshop teacher, a widely published and exhibited photographer, and successful writer. So by and large I take what he says with all seriousness even when I ultimately discard his methods. He has earned that IMO. Have you?

[feppe]

Hmmm you may not agree with George, you may think he is a bad writer, you may think he doesn't know what he is talking about.........blah blah etc. etc............but George is without question a very accomplished and popular workshop teacher, a widely published and exhibited photographer, and successful writer. So by and large I take what he says with all seriousness even when I ultimately discard his methods. He has earned that IMO. Have you?

I don't see how his or my credentials are relevant, since the original "article" is widely considered hogwash.

I'm done here, before the thread gets locked.

[Kirk Gittings]

Hogwash by who? Yahoos on forums? This guy makes most of his living with workshops and they have been packed years after year after year. Look at his workshop schedule http://www.georgedewolfe.com/workshopsched.html. I know lots of photographers (not beginners by far) who have taken his workshops and gotten a ton out of them. The actual fact is that George is highly respected.

[JohnBrew]

I took George's Master Print workshop in 2005 or 2006 (can't really remember!). I had just purchased my first CS version of PS to work digital files and didn't know squat. While much of what George had to offer was way over my head, I did benefit from his efforts and we had a lot of fun. OTOH, George is still primarily teaching now what he was teaching then and I've pretty much moved on, finding different ways which suit my workflow better with what I'm trying to accomplish.

[BradSmith]

I'm not commenting on PercepTool.   I'm commenting on the majority of his article, a long, detailed technical discussion regarding the history brush and it's use in image adjustment.    I think it contained a good deal more detailed, "how to" info than a good number of the articles posted here on LuLa over the last couple years.     I enjoyed the article.  Thanks to George and the LuLa gatekeepers for posting it.
Brad

[Monito]

Yes, Brad.  Without regard to other issues, it was the first exposition that gave me a reasonable understanding of the history brush and how it might be useful.  It is mostly my issue, as I have studied and used many other techniques ahead of it, but for whatever reason, the article was very useful for the purpose of learning about the history brush.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I agree with Brad and Monito. This was an excellent article (regardless whether or not one chooses to try Perceptool).

Eric

[digitaldog]

...but for whatever reason, the article was very useful for the purpose of learning about the history brush.

I did as well and found the ideas something I’d consider looking further into. I can’t say I’m 100% happy with the language/terminology (Luminance & Luminosity, Lstar is Lightness) but that is nit picking.

[Mike Sellers]

I tried it and it improved almost all of my images-thanks George!
Mike