Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

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The Digital Photographer's Software Guide
ColorWasher has seven methods called cast types for reconstructing lost colors and detail.
Its tools go beyond ordinary brightness and gamma correction by boosting contrast,
hiding noise, maintaining steady saturation, and increasing the number of colors in the
image. Its Auto Contrast and Exposure Fix features can be set to several different levels,
while this software also offers the option of manual adjustment in percent and EV
values. It has excellent histograms: 10 types in four styles for expert use. There is also
an Easy Mode, in which the program starts by default. Most of the time you can stay
in this mode except when faced with a difficult image. At this point you need to read
the vendor’s “Tips for Tough Cases” in the very detailed user manual.
Comments
ColorWasher is prized especially by enthusiasts for its ability to help the user correct
colorcasts. Independent tests by many reviewers were unanimous in praising its ease-ofuse
and overall effectiveness.
Version: Windows ColorWasher 2.02c; Mac OS X 2.01 (2008)
Plugs into: Photoshop, Elements, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact, Photo-Paint, Fireworks, and so on
OS: Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista; Mac OS X
Supported file formats: 8-bit and 16-bit RGB and grayscale images
Price level: Approx. $50
Address: Nuremberg, Germany
www.photocorrection.com
Curvemeister
Vendor: Mike Russell (sold through order.kagi.com)
Purpose: Specialist curve control software to manipulate images in wide gamut CMYK space
Description
Mike Russell’s Curvemeister is a Windows-based plug-in for Photoshop 5 and above.
It works with all versions of Elements, which means you can turn Elements into an
excellent curve machine without having to buy the full-blown version of Photoshop. It
has a huge range of features, many of which are not in the host program.
Curvemeister has a color wizard to speed up color correction; a threshold function to
locate shadows/highlights and to spot clipping immediately; switching between color
spaces on-the-fly; a “hue clock” to help you judge colors such as skin tones; multiple
curve adjustment; optional histogram overlay; corner-fill; curve rotation; and plenty of
tutorial help. Once you have created a curve, it can be yours forever—the program saves
every curve automatically, allowing you to look it up by date, time, and image filename.
Curvemeister gives you a choice of working in different color spaces and then returning
the file to Photoshop in RGB.