How was this done?

This image is special in the way it was made. Any guesses?

Kirk knows the answer and was very helpful in the making of it. Yes, it is my image. Yes it was done on purpose to illustrate.

Are you talking about the masked areas, or the long exposure?

Gradiant filter top to center.
Three circles with soft edges... lightened.
One oval with hard edges... lightened.

Do I win the No-Prize Danno?

PhotosGuy wrote in post #17020116
Are you talking about the masked areas, or the long exposure?

The masked areas.

FarmerTed1971 wrote in post #17020153
Gradiant filter top to center.
Three circles with soft edges... lightened.
One oval with hard edges... lightened.

Do I win the No-Prize Danno?

In a way.

The top was a Gradient with the 3 circles masked to hide the effect. The middle was a Radial Gradient. It was all done in ACR-CS6. The thing that makes it special is that ACR-CS6 doesn't have visible tools for the masking or Radial Gradient. Both of these tools were introduced in ACR-CC.

Adobe has allowed ACR-CS6 users to continue to update ACR, currently 8.5. The ACR-CS6 updates only apply to new camera support and not the new tools. I've wondered about how this was done. A recent thread KirkT posted that using the new tools in ACR-CC would show up in ACR-CS6. It had to be reading the xmp file which led me to believe the tools are there just hidden from the UI. I sent Kirk a CR2 file and asked him to use the new tools and send me the xmp. I compared his xmp with the one I created. I noted the sections that were different and copied them to another image's xmp. They were applied to the new image in the same locations.

It took a little testing to figure how to place the Gradient Mask and the Radial Gradient to where I wanted. With a little trial and error I'm pretty much able to apply those to where I want by writing to the xmp file. I'm still working on how the numbers for the adjustments translate.

I don't see using this a lot due to the method, however I do see these adjustments as being very handy. I'm guessing there is a switch somewhere that turns the UI on for these tools somewhere.

So it may be possible to create a plugin that is akin to Elements XXL but for Photoshop CS6 that allows the use of the PSCC tools.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #17020561
So it may be possible to create a plugin that is akin to Elements XXL but for Photoshop CS6 that allows the use of the PSCC tools.

I have no idea, but would guess no since the new tools in CC are not "hidden" in CS6. I'm using ACR8.5 for CS6 which is the same version ACR that CC uses and the new tools are simply hidden from use for CS6 users.

What would be interesting if someone still using ACR7.x could access these tools thru the xmp file.

Interesting.

We just signed up for CC* but I haven't installed or used any of it yet. I'm slightly excited to see the differences in ACR/Lightroom. I'm still using LR4 and Photoshop CS5.1.


* the wife decided to start using Audition instead of Final Cut for podcast audio editing. She says the dedicated audio tool is so much easier and faster than Final Cut, imagine that. She's making the whole CC subscription fee back in saved time/effort on her weekly podcast clients.

I think the approach would be to create a plug-in or similar GUI-powered application that would permit you to work on a proxy image to make you local edits and write them to the XML of the raw file. Then the raw could be opened in ACR and those local edits could be applied during raw conversion.

I could see this working in the following way:

1) Open the raw file in ACR and make basic adjustments - open the converted file AS A SMART OBJECT.
2) Use whatever plug-in based approach you could come up with to make local adjustments on the smart object - this would be used to generate the XML necessary to inject into the raw file's XML sidecar.
3) Save the original XML (from the original conversion) as a backup and paste the new XML snippets into a duplicate XML file renamed to the original so that it pairs with the original raw file.
4) Re-open the Smart Object in ACR - if all works as planned, the injected local edits would be applied.

Etc.

You could add all sorts of local edit tools to the ACR rendering interface this way, but you would have to go back and forth between the ACR dialog (to see the rendered result) and the "plug-in" to write the edits to the XML file.

If you make local edits and then open the XML file that contains them, you will see that there is basically a list of cursor positions corresponding to the brush stroke you applied - they appeared to be sampled at regular spatial intervals, where there is likely some balance between enough resolution to make smooth edits and large enough spacing so that the list of positions does not get huge. At the beginning of the list is the brush size and flow, etc. Same basic approach for grad filters (the beginning and end points, and exposure change, etc.). So you basically need a away to leverage the javascript engine in PS to capture this kind of data while you brush in or apply edits on the proxy image and then transfer those data into the XML sidecar in the format that ACR expects. This would be a hacked "pixel editing" solution to ACR/LR, but of course it would, ironically, require a pixel editor to achieve it. At least it would be a proof of concept.

Ultimately, this may only be useful if there is a particular reason why the local edits need to be made on the file during raw conversion versus within PS on the rendered RGB image.

kirk

Doesn't really matter how it was made, it's horrible.

Numenorean wrote in post #17020828
Doesn't really matter how it was made, it's horrible.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the exercise was to prove a concept, not make a work of art for you.

kirk

Numenorean wrote in post #17020828
Doesn't really matter how it was made, it's horrible.

Gee, you think? Maybe it was done that way to illustrate?

Exactly.

kirkt wrote in post #17020806
You could add all sorts of local edit tools to the ACR rendering interface this way, but you would have to go back and forth between the ACR dialog (to see the rendered result) and the "plug-in" to write the edits to the XML file.

kirk

What I've been doing while experimenting with this is to have the image highlighted in Bridge and the xmp file open in a text editor. I make a few changes to the xmp instructions, save the file, and switch back to Bridge. The image will update in a second or two, then switch back to the text editor for other changes.

I'm finding that I can get by with a lot fewer of the cursor position instructions by writing to the xmp.

Yeah, I don't see using this a lot due to the clumsiness. I can think of a few instances where it might be nice to mask a Gradient and/or use the Radial Gradient on the RAW file. Of course, I could always render and accomplish the same with masks in CS6.

Thanks again for your help in this "project"!

Should I point out that all of that can be done in Lightroom fairly easily?

abacus022 wrote in post #17023742
Should I point out that all of that can be done in Lightroom fairly easily?

Yes, if you have LR. I don't use LR. This can also be done fairly easy with ACR8.x under PSCC if you have it. Of course, I can also do it easily in CS6 (which I do use). The whole point was to see if the tools available in PSCC's ACR were accessible in ACR8.x under CS6. Adobe has allowed us CS6 users to continue to update our ACR with new cameras, but not any of the new features. This was simply an exercise in curiosity.