Curves v. Levels?

[B-3]

Hi folks,

Has anybody tried to make a digital negative without involving the Curves tool? Can it be done with the Levels tool instead?

Bruce

[L Gebhardt]

Hi folks,

Has anybody tried to make a digital negative without involving the Curves tool? Can it be done with the Levels tool instead?

Bruce

I don't think so because the level tool only gives you three points and all the curves I have used require a different slope for the toe and the shoulder areas. This requires at least 2 intermediate points in addition to the black and white points. Try Picture Window Pro if you want an inexpensive tool that gives you curves.

[B-3]

Thanks for the tip on Picture Window Pro - I'll look into it.

Still curious to know if anyone has tried using Levels, and if so, what kind of results you got.

Cheers,
Bruce

[B-3]

It appears that Picture Window (Pro or otherwise) does not come in a version compatible with Macs. Any other possibilities?

B

[Jeremy]

As Lee said, it's really not that feasible to use levels instead of curves since you really only have 1 point to adjust--the outside 2 points adjust the max black and white which I leave alone on my curves. This still gives me around 13 points to plot in the curves setting.

[donbga]

Hi folks,

Has anybody tried to make a digital negative without involving the Curves tool? Can it be done with the Levels tool instead?

Bruce

Bruce,

Levels adjustments cannot be used as a substitue for a process adjustment curve - period.

I might reccomend PS Elements 3 and a book recommended by Sam Wang (the title of which I can't recall). According to Sam the book comes with a CD that provides macros for Elements 3 that will provide many of the missing features of PSCS.

If you will PM me I'll find the name of the book.

Don BRyant

[Lee L]

The GIMP, www.gimp.org should run on OS-X. It has both curves and levels, and is free. It might even read in some Photoshop plug-in files if I'm reading the info correctly. I don't use Photoshop (Picture Window and GIMP here), so I can't really tell you about that. But it's free, and probably worth a try.

Lee

It appears that Picture Window (Pro or otherwise) does not come in a version compatible with Macs. Any other possibilities?

B