EasyEd
January 16th, 2010, 20:14
Hey All,
I bought this program called Artizen HDR about 9 months ago and it worked briefly (couple days IIRC) and then the HDR part simply quit functioning as I would get an error 380 - whatever that is - which would either lock the program or quit (I don't recall which). After a couple rounds of emails doing the usual reinstalls and such no luck so I figured $46 down the drain.
I bought the program for 3 reasons:
- first it is a very full featured image/photo editor (all the standards like redeye, white and black points, gamma, contrast, saturation, noise, sharpening and curves and orton filters, etc and it supports layers, masks, lasso tool, brushes, cloning, etc and it reads a lot of RAW files just to name a few things it offers) so it offers a lot of post processing capability
- it gave me some HDR processing capability with the ability to combine images, a couple tone mapping operators the abilty to remove ghosting and rotate images.
- it was very reasonably (read inexpensive) priced
(I've seen no programs other than this one that offer post processing capability and HDR in one)
In short sort of a poor man's Photoshop or Aperture or Lightroom or Elements or any of the $100+ (up to $500-$600) image/photo processing programs for only $46 (still the current price).
Well since starting to participate in this photography forum I went back and checked and there is a new version out (the developers are actively continuing development and welcome user inut) and it supports full editing in 8, 16, 32 bit formats, handles big files and has a bunch of other stuff (like panorama stuff) updated that I've never used. Here is a link to the features it offers.
http://www.supportingcomputers.net/Applications/Artizen/Artizen.htm
The support was very good and in fact I've come to learn is outstanding in most peoples experience. I had no complaints about the support I got several months ago I just figured for $46 it wasn't worth the hassle so I let it go even though the company was willing to continue trying to help me. The problem I had while not resolved because of me is now no longer a problem with the new version.
Well I've been playing with a very blah (but with a fair bit potential for experimenting with post processing) image a lot today in Artizen and am impressed with all I can do even though I don't know how to use most of it. I'm now very happy with the program.
I would recommend that anybody looking for an inexpensive photo editor with a lot of powerful post processing and HDR features take a serious look at artizen. It seems to me like you get a lot of capability for the cost of a high end FS model. Those of you here who know more than I about the kind of features one would want for photo post processing should go ahead and comment on what Artizen has to offer.
Now getting to the attached images. I took a picture from a hilltop near my house on an overcast day. Like I said it is a very blah image but I wanted to see what I could get out of it as I know there was detail in there that the camera image was not showing. So I processed it as a pseudo HDR (from one image not several). The first is what the camera delivered (Canon G9 I think not my Panny G1). Second is my first attempt at processing an overblown HDR in Artizen using the dramatic tone mapping algorithm. The third is an attempt at just manipulating the image using - I think - the simplest tone mapping algorithm called display in the program. I was trying to get something that looked like what I saw that day - it's still not right as the close colours are a bit over saturated while I have more haze in the mid ground than there was. It's not the fault of the program it's my inability showing through.
Please do not judge the program by my results. Have a look at this page to see more of what people who know what they are doing get.
http://www.supportingcomputers.net/Applications/Artizen/Gallery.htm
-Ed-
PS I've no financial interest in Artizen - it just seems to be a pretty powerful program for a low cost.
PSS I'm going to have to experiment with others images a bit - just for fun.
I bought this program called Artizen HDR about 9 months ago and it worked briefly (couple days IIRC) and then the HDR part simply quit functioning as I would get an error 380 - whatever that is - which would either lock the program or quit (I don't recall which). After a couple rounds of emails doing the usual reinstalls and such no luck so I figured $46 down the drain.
I bought the program for 3 reasons:
- first it is a very full featured image/photo editor (all the standards like redeye, white and black points, gamma, contrast, saturation, noise, sharpening and curves and orton filters, etc and it supports layers, masks, lasso tool, brushes, cloning, etc and it reads a lot of RAW files just to name a few things it offers) so it offers a lot of post processing capability
- it gave me some HDR processing capability with the ability to combine images, a couple tone mapping operators the abilty to remove ghosting and rotate images.
- it was very reasonably (read inexpensive) priced
(I've seen no programs other than this one that offer post processing capability and HDR in one)
In short sort of a poor man's Photoshop or Aperture or Lightroom or Elements or any of the $100+ (up to $500-$600) image/photo processing programs for only $46 (still the current price).
Well since starting to participate in this photography forum I went back and checked and there is a new version out (the developers are actively continuing development and welcome user inut) and it supports full editing in 8, 16, 32 bit formats, handles big files and has a bunch of other stuff (like panorama stuff) updated that I've never used. Here is a link to the features it offers.
http://www.supportingcomputers.net/Applications/Artizen/Artizen.htm
The support was very good and in fact I've come to learn is outstanding in most peoples experience. I had no complaints about the support I got several months ago I just figured for $46 it wasn't worth the hassle so I let it go even though the company was willing to continue trying to help me. The problem I had while not resolved because of me is now no longer a problem with the new version.
Well I've been playing with a very blah (but with a fair bit potential for experimenting with post processing) image a lot today in Artizen and am impressed with all I can do even though I don't know how to use most of it. I'm now very happy with the program.
I would recommend that anybody looking for an inexpensive photo editor with a lot of powerful post processing and HDR features take a serious look at artizen. It seems to me like you get a lot of capability for the cost of a high end FS model. Those of you here who know more than I about the kind of features one would want for photo post processing should go ahead and comment on what Artizen has to offer.
Now getting to the attached images. I took a picture from a hilltop near my house on an overcast day. Like I said it is a very blah image but I wanted to see what I could get out of it as I know there was detail in there that the camera image was not showing. So I processed it as a pseudo HDR (from one image not several). The first is what the camera delivered (Canon G9 I think not my Panny G1). Second is my first attempt at processing an overblown HDR in Artizen using the dramatic tone mapping algorithm. The third is an attempt at just manipulating the image using - I think - the simplest tone mapping algorithm called display in the program. I was trying to get something that looked like what I saw that day - it's still not right as the close colours are a bit over saturated while I have more haze in the mid ground than there was. It's not the fault of the program it's my inability showing through.
Please do not judge the program by my results. Have a look at this page to see more of what people who know what they are doing get.
http://www.supportingcomputers.net/Applications/Artizen/Gallery.htm
-Ed-
PS I've no financial interest in Artizen - it just seems to be a pretty powerful program for a low cost.
PSS I'm going to have to experiment with others images a bit - just for fun.