Viveza plug-in... Alternative??

[safehaven]

I did not want to hijack the original thread about the Viveza plug-in, so I have made a new one.

A couple of the posts in the old thread mentioned that it was nearly as simple get the results of the Viveza plug-ing using layer masks in Photoshop. Is there a tutorial that could demonstrate this with layer masks? Or, could somebody here give some guidance on how to achieve the effects that the plug-in does?

I really like the simplicity of the plug-in, but the price is WAY too out there. For those that haven't seen it, here is the link to it.:
http://www.niksoftware.com/viveza/usa/entry.php?view=intro/viveza_announcement.shtml

[Zilly]

Im not aware with the plug in and i carnt see any demos on the site as to what it does show me what it does and ill show you how to do it manually

[RodBarker]

Basically you would use selections with adjustment layers with that are clipped to one layer .
Heres a simple example .

Open and image and duplicate the layer .

With the lasso tool draw a selection with a feather if you want a soft edge - a wacom tablet helps heaps with drawing selections as a opposed to dragging out a circle selection say .

With the marching ants on selection , apply an adjustment layer for Hue or brightness just pick any really which will add a layer with your selection auto masked .
In the layers pallet hold your mouse right in between the adjustment layer and the layer under it , right on the line between them , then press the alt key , a small icon will appear at your mouse now click ,, that has now clipped the adjustment layer to effect only the layer directly below it instead of the whole stack , now dial in an adjustment in the adjustment layer .

Thats basically the meat in the sandwich , you can stack as many layers as you like or merge down as you go , you can paint directly on the mask to hide and reveal at any time and you can re-adjust the adjustment layer at any time , the selections can be drawn or they can come from color .

Masking is super powerful and sounds a lot more complicated than it really is , once you are at ease with selections and masks you can work faster than the plugin with a lot more control and power , the plugin is really just GUI for a limited control set of selections with masks with some color and brightness adjustments , no way would I pay $250 for it .

Rod

[Alexajlex]

Here is the demo from PMA 2008

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1879398849687625466&q=viveza+plugin&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

and another video with another demo also from PMA 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYwwHyLPB8c

Im not aware with the plug in and i carnt see any demos on the site as to what it does show me what it does and ill show you how to do it manually

[Alexajlex]

Viveza is built for speed from what I see.
If you shot 300-400 pics in a day and your doing an SDE (Same Day Edit) than this is worth it.

[RodBarker]

Viveza is built for speed from what I see.
If you shot 300-400 pics in a day and your doing an SDE (Same Day Edit) than this is worth it.

Its not a multi edit plugin as each image is edited entirely different .

Rod

[ssim]

The closest thing that I know about would be Capture NX put out by Nikon. It utilizes the same u-point technology as the Nik software.

I have several of the Nik software packages and they really do work great. The part that I like is that you have the ability to apply the changes globally or you can paint the adjustments in with a brush. This is a further win as you can change the opacity levels of your brush while applying these changes so that you can have several different opacity levels within one layer. If the changes are still too harsh for you then you can further adjust the opacity level of the layer itself.

Most changes that are done by plug ins can be accomplished through the use of selections, layer masks and clipping groups. How much is your time worth to you. To replicate some of these applications you would spend an inordinate time to accomplish the same thing. If you are good at doing complex selections you are well on your way though.

Most of the Nik plug ins can be batched. You would only do this on images that are very close to each other otherwise applying the same settings in rather meaningless.

Given the price variation between Capture NX and Viveza, one would have to assume that the later does allot more. I had the opportunity to play with Capture NX about a year ago and it worked pretty good. This u-point technology is probably going to one of the shining stars in future software applications.

They both have trial download periods so I would just give them a try and see if Viveza is that much better to justify the price difference.

[Howler-Cat]

Here's the sample picture I've downloaded from their sight. This was done with Color range, using Hue/Saturation (sky), Multiply and Screen Blending modes (yellow grass and trees).

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a254/howlercat/4rum3/Test.jpg


1. Go to Select menu and choose color range
2. use the eydrop w/+ along with the fuzziness slider to sample your area (yellow grass) and hit ok when done.
3. Hold down the control key and press J to make a new Layer via copy of the selected.
4. Go to blend mode and change from normal to multiply. You will see the entire area change to dark yellow. Perhaps, too dark. Reduce the opacity to about 50% or to your liking.
5. Repeat step 1-4 for the green trees. This time, change the blend mode from normal to screen to lighten the trees. Again, reduce the opacity to about 50% or so.

6. Repeat step 1-4 for the sky. With this, I've used Hue/Saturation. Pick the blue color on the dropdown menu and add about 47% with the saturation slider.

I am not a CS3 pro and I am not bagging on the Viveza plug-in. I think it is a wonderful tool. But, I don't have $250 to spend. This is a cheaper way to for me. ;)

[Alexajlex]

Its not a multi edit plugin as each image is edited entirely different .

Rod


Yes. What I was saying is that if you an SDE the simple fact that you have the speed to do it faster than with adjustment layers it is all you need.
I know that you can only work with one image at a time.

400 pics with CS3 would take a long time to get tweaked out the way Viveza does it.

[cdifoto]

Here's my go in Lightroom with the HSL sliders. I could have gone further or backed off...it's a personal preference.

250775

[Alexajlex]

I've read comments from people who compared it to Nikon Capture NX.

Nik Software developed UPoint technology (they have a patent).
Nikon licensed this technology for Capture NX (the control points and quite a few bits in the interface are identical between the 2).

http://www.nikonimaging.com/global/products/software/capturenx/nxsp/u_point.htm

"Capture NX image editing utilizes Nik Software's patented U PointTM technology. This new innovation in photo image processing and editing can be applied to Nikon's NEF files, as well as any camera's JPEG and TIFF files*."

Tony Corbell also made a brief statement that Viveza uses UPoint tech which Nik software licensed to Nikon in his interview with Calumet (PMA 2008 minue 1:26~)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5esItCUXYQY

I'll have to download Capture NX and see what the differences are between that and Viveza.

I'm venturing a guess that there are some big ones since the price difference is $100.
Will download and see.

I just hope the Nikon software won't start a fight with my Canon gear :)

[Alexajlex]

Here's my go in Lightroom with the HSL sliders. I could have gone further or backed off...it's a personal preference.

250775

That is really close to what they did on the demo.
Nice work..
Now I have to look at Lightroom as well :(

[cdifoto]

That is really close to what they did on the demo.
Nice work..
Now I have to look at Lightroom as well :(

That's funny. I didn't even see the demo for the wedding pic. Off to watch it now...

[safehaven]

RodBarker, Howler-Cat

Thanks for these techniques. That is exactly what I was looking for. I tried both ways and both ways work. Photoshop is so powerful and so massive, that, for me, it is very hard to even figure out where to get started. These techniques are definitely a great place to get going from. Thank you both.

My guess is that Photoshop is a lot like "they" say plumbing is. If you ask 9 different plumbers how to plumb a house, you're going to get 10 different ways of doing it.

Thanks again. I'd like to try other suggestions, tips and techniques others might have as well.

[tzalman]

Two minutes with this plugin (http://dl-c.com/content/view/16/30/)

[Az2Africa]

Scott Kelby called Vivesa "Freakin' awesome".:)

[safehaven]

Scott Kelby called Vivesa "Freakin' awesome".:)

Two minutes with this plugin (http://dl-c.com/content/view/16/30/)

I call it "Freakin' expensive". And to be honest, it did not take too much longer that a couple of minutes to achieve the same affect using the 2 methods posted earlier, and I was learning as I went. I spent maybe 5 minutes each on both methods.

There is no arguing that it is a great plugin. It is just way too spendy for me and I don't mind if it takes me a little longer to get the same affect. Hence, the whole purpose of this post was to find out how to achieve the same final produce using what is already built into Photoshop. This thread was never meant to question the productiveness or "freakin' awesomeness" of the plugin. It is a great plug in. I like what it does. That is why I wanted to be able to get the same results myself, without the plugin.

[cdifoto]

I think I spent 30 seconds on mine.

[Az2Africa]

I wasn't arguing about whether someone should get it or not. Some of us don't care to spend endless hours learning every asset available in CS3. I like to take a good shot and add a little pop to it and go shoot some more. Learning all the PS moves doesn't come easy for me, so I like all the help I can get.:)

[Alexajlex]

Where Viveza seems to have an edge is with the fact that their algorithm is a lot better when it comes to selecting similar areas better than other plugins.

I gave Color Mechanic a shot and I noticed that when I clicked on the sky the mask was only covering a small area forcing me to add multiple controls. In contrast with Viveza I added on control and used the size tool to affect the whole sky.

The other issue I noticed with the Color Mechanic plug-in was that it was too easily affecting the whites in the dress when I was tweaking the sky (since there is white in the clouds in the sky). It is very subtle but it is there. Viveza sometimes does this as well but it is much easier to suppress this by adding a new reset control as compared with
Color Mechanic. I was able to do it with CM but it took quite a bit more work.

[Howler-Cat]

Here's my go in Lightroom with the HSL sliders. I could have gone further or backed off...it's a personal preference.



This is another great technique. For those that don't have the luxury (in my own opion :D) using Lightroom, the HSL is also available in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). If you don't have this feature, you need to update it to the latest version. For JPEG shooters, and if you didn't know this, you can open your jpeg files in ACR by go to photoshop preference->file handling and check the box indicates "Prefer Adobe Camera Raw for JPEG files".

[pads69]

here is my try with this plug in it also works with Elements.
I would like to know a way to do it in elements with out paying 250
I have a hard time selecting parts of the sky with out making it look bad in the tree tops.
any help would be nice.

does it look bad good my son said it looks fake. I like it I did the sky and the 2 front trees and the water on the right side

Also with the plug in it was hard to select the sky without getting some of the trees or house
in it but it was my first try.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj144/pads69/IMG_6627_edited-1.jpg?t=1213712541


http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj144/pads69/IMG_6627_edited-v2copy_edited-1_fil.jpg?t=1213712668