| Author |
Message |
    
Anonymous
| | Posted on Friday, September 01, 2000 - 11:15 am: |   |
It seems that the images that I'm creating come out very undersaturated. Is there a way to adjust the contrast and saturation after the images are stitched together? |
John Strait
| | Posted on Friday, September 01, 2000 - 11:37 am: | |
The Color panel and Histogram panel control brightness, contrast and color saturation.
The color panel is normally available only when you are working from images that have more than 24 bits per pixel (8 bits per color). To enable the color panel you must convert your project from 24-bit to 45-bit color. Use the Project properties dialog and turn on "Use 45-bit pixels." You'll have to do this each time you start a new project because the project default is set according to the attributes of your imported images.
NOTE: 45-bit projects require about 2.5 times as much RAM and about twice as much disk space as 24-bit projects.
It is important to know that the Enable exposure correction option on the Blending properties dialog (Tools menu) adjusts the color panel settings whenever you stitch a panorama. You may wish to disable exposure correction after the initial stitch of your panorama. This way you will not lose manual color adjustments if you restitch.
Brightness and contrast
The color panel offers independent control over white level (highlights), black level (shadows) and midrange. Overall contrast is increased by increasing the white level value and decreasing the black level value.
Saturation
The color panel offers control over color saturation. Be subtle with this control. It’s easy to increase the saturation so much that the image looks cartoonish.
Color balance
The Set black and Set white buttons on the Histogram panel adjust the color balance of the white level and black level at the same time that they set the levels. The Set gray button offers control over the color balance of the midrange.
You can use the histogram panel to make an initial setting to perform overall color correction (e.g. for images taken under artifical light):
1. Adjust the white level, black level and midrange level value on the Color tool to get a pleasing overall brightness.
2. Select the thumbnail of your final image.
3. Press the Set gray button on the histogram panel.
Using the Set gray button performs a passable job of overall color correction. This is because it balances so that on average the images are gray. This works because color perception is relative to overall illumination. Of course you may find a different overall color correction to be more esthetically pleasing, but this should provide a good starting point. |
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