Toning / Levels

[Eric]

Two 'features' that I would like to see:

Tone/levels. This is still one area where we have to open an external program.  I'd say that for 99% of my needs if I could crop/tone/ adj levels I'd be able to run my whole work flow from within PM5

Rotate the canvas when cropping.  I would like to see the an image preview actually display with the crop applied. I have the mask set to blackout the area outside the crop area BUT I'd still like to see the image rotated so that it is straight.  Straightening some images is still hit & miss. What I 'think' should be the correct horizontal or vertical alignment point turns out to cause other perception issues when the image is viewed after applying the crop.  It's not always possible to 'see' this when the image is displayed 20 degrees skewed and you're tilting your head to try to see what it will look like once the crop is applied. 

Of the two toning and levels would be my #1 on the wish list.

[Luiz Muzzi]

Two 'features' that I would like to see:

Tone/levels. This is still one area where we have to open an external program.  I'd say that for 99% of my needs if I could crop/tone/ adj levels I'd be able to run my whole work flow from within PM5

Rotate the canvas when cropping.  I would like to see the an image preview actually display with the crop applied. I have the mask set to blackout the area outside the crop area BUT I'd still like to see the image rotated so that it is straight.  Straightening some images is still hit & miss. What I 'think' should be the correct horizontal or vertical alignment point turns out to cause other perception issues when the image is viewed after applying the crop.  It's not always possible to 'see' this when the image is displayed 20 degrees skewed and you're tilting your head to try to see what it will look like once the crop is applied. 

Of the two toning and levels would be my #1 on the wish list.

Another vote for the cropping suggestion.
Regards,

-Luiz Muzzi

[mhartmann]

I vote for the cropping suggestion, too. It would be great to have the area that is used for crop rotation in a wider space. It happens to me, that I draw a new crop frame, when I would like to rotate the frame.
Some kind of Level/Contrast/Saturation/WhiteBalance would be very good to get rid of external raw editors.

[Kirk Baker]

I vote for the cropping suggestion, too. It would be great to have the area that is used for crop rotation in a wider space. It happens to me, that I draw a new crop frame, when I would like to rotate the frame.
Some kind of Level/Contrast/Saturation/WhiteBalance would be very good to get rid of external raw editors.

It is not likely that we'll fundamentally change the way the crop tool works.

-Kirk

[Eric]

Kirk what about the toning request then? Any real hope that we could see a version that will allow us to tone within PM? I'm willing to bet that a 80% or more of users would be able to abandon external editors and have 100% of their workflow within PM if it was possible to do simple toning within PM.

[Kirk Baker]

Eric,

Kirk what about the toning request then? Any real hope that we could see a version that will allow us to tone within PM? I'm willing to bet that a 80% or more of users would be able to abandon external editors and have 100% of their workflow within PM if it was possible to do simple toning within PM.

It is a feature that we're considering.  But please understand that firstly PM is not a pixel editor and it does not process images as 16-bit images like dedicated image processing software does.  And secondly our development efforts are focused on our cataloging solution at this time.

-Kirk

[Eric]

I understand... that's why I'm not looking for curves or dodging & burning or any of the other tools that you would find in PS/LR for true manipulations. Just looking for a simple set of tools that would be 'journalism' friendly for those of us in the field moving images to our publications. Lets face it you guys have THE tool in use by 90% (if not 100%) of the the people in the field. And at the same time everyone is always on the hunt for the ONE tool that will let them do the core of their workflow from within as few a number of programs as possible. I just think that toning would put the nail in the coffin when it comes to having to open LR or PS in the field. Not to mention that NOT having to have something like PS on a netbook would save a ton of space. Both in terms of HD space for the program as well as trying to have 2 programs running in a very cramped environment.

I'll leave it at that. 

[judophotos]

Eric,

You can use all the NIK plugins directly from Photo Mechanic as long as you are not working directly on RAW images. If you are convert them to TIFF to finish them.

You can run a free trial to see if they would work for you.

I create NEFs and use Capture NX2 which is brilliant. However, Nikon are no longer upgrading the programme. A very short sighted decision.

I hope this helps.
David

[Eric]

Sticking to the cropping tool.... how about a straightening tool along the lines of the one in Photoshop. Something that allows you to draw a line and have the crop snap to it?

[Kirk Baker]

Eric,

Sticking to the cropping tool.... how about a straightening tool along the lines of the one in Photoshop. Something that allows you to draw a line and have the crop snap to it?

Have you tried turning on the Grid option?  Does that not work for you?

-Kirk

[Eric]

I have a grid of 9 blocks when cropping.  Is there a way to change that to 18? Unfortunately in many cases the grid is too coarse, and I can't move the crop mask over far enough to check for alignment.  If there is a way to get a finer grid it would be a decent workaround. 

[Kirk Baker]

Eric,

I have a grid of 9 blocks when cropping.  Is there a way to change that to 18? Unfortunately in many cases the grid is too coarse, and I can't move the crop mask over far enough to check for alignment.  If there is a way to get a finer grid it would be a decent workaround.

If you start the crop out smaller than it will eventually be, you can use any of the lines to set rotational alignment, then make the crop larger to fit.

-Kirk