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Where is the biggest digital time saving software?
Software development of a plug in for dirt
This problem takes more time for most photo editors and photographers than anything else, but has any software been developed to solve it?
I am talking about dirt - on negatives or digital images has always been and probably will always be a problem photographers have to live with.
What I have yet to see though (and if anybody has seen a solution do please email me)is a software programme to reduce dirt on digital images. There are some that work on scanned film, but is there any for digital captivated images?
Nearly all dirt on the sensors of digital cameras shows up as a circle (unless it is very big in which case a quick swipe with the healing brush or the clone stamp in Photoshop is all that is needed as it is easy to see). I am not talking about digital noise here either - that has been addressed to some degree already.
Its the smaller dark circles or droplet like spots I am talking about. Surely they can be identified - particularly above a certain light level on the image (usually blue sky is the worst) by software taking shape and comparitive shade jointly into account? Unless the image is of a pokadot dress with grey spots they could be identified and removed relatively easily, at least as an optional tool on the toolbar?
Finally lets put this in perspective, dirt on film is nearly always a bigger problem than sensor dirt if the camera is carefully looked after and serviced properly. Also digital software has come a long way and I could not do without it now!
Update: 01/06/07
Perhaps Adobe read my article. Adobe have released the first version of Lightroom. This has a feature that claims you can mark the dirty areas or "bunnies" with an adjustable circle and then remove from each frame by a "healing" method using similar pixels to the surrounding area. This can be repeated for multi-frames. I have not tested this myself but the reports sound good and this seems a useful addition addition to the photographer's armery. It is a development in part from the excellent Rawshooter Premium 2006, now no longer available. However it has additional useful features that are worth a look. From what I have read it needs 1GB of RAM. Rawshooter ran quite well on 512MB RAM.
Chris Barnes
I am talking about dirt - on negatives or digital images has always been and probably will always be a problem photographers have to live with.
What I have yet to see though (and if anybody has seen a solution do please email me)is a software programme to reduce dirt on digital images. There are some that work on scanned film, but is there any for digital captivated images?
Nearly all dirt on the sensors of digital cameras shows up as a circle (unless it is very big in which case a quick swipe with the healing brush or the clone stamp in Photoshop is all that is needed as it is easy to see). I am not talking about digital noise here either - that has been addressed to some degree already.
Its the smaller dark circles or droplet like spots I am talking about. Surely they can be identified - particularly above a certain light level on the image (usually blue sky is the worst) by software taking shape and comparitive shade jointly into account? Unless the image is of a pokadot dress with grey spots they could be identified and removed relatively easily, at least as an optional tool on the toolbar?
Finally lets put this in perspective, dirt on film is nearly always a bigger problem than sensor dirt if the camera is carefully looked after and serviced properly. Also digital software has come a long way and I could not do without it now!
Update: 01/06/07
Perhaps Adobe read my article. Adobe have released the first version of Lightroom. This has a feature that claims you can mark the dirty areas or "bunnies" with an adjustable circle and then remove from each frame by a "healing" method using similar pixels to the surrounding area. This can be repeated for multi-frames. I have not tested this myself but the reports sound good and this seems a useful addition addition to the photographer's armery. It is a development in part from the excellent Rawshooter Premium 2006, now no longer available. However it has additional useful features that are worth a look. From what I have read it needs 1GB of RAM. Rawshooter ran quite well on 512MB RAM.
Chris Barnes