Enhanced Image Viewer - pump out color & lift contrast.

niah · Jul 27, 2008

Hi all,

I have been using Nikon camera for a while and own a D70 and now a D40.

I am not very happy with the color rendering of Nikon because I am a newbie who like quality resolution of DSLR but hates reprocessing and that what lead me to get the D40.. an improvement on the D70's dullness but still not to my desire.

Every time i review picture using ulead explorer the picture look not as colorfull as I would like.

Then i tried using a program call CDISPLAY - it is free and people use it to read comic on computer (scan - jpeg compressed to ext. CBR) This program give default option of enhancing color and that when I notice my photos look great (to me) when viewing with this program. What it did was color ballance all photo view through it by default (can be turn off) and that really pump up the color.

Just google CDISPLAY and you can find many link to it. It free b/c its open source software.

The reason I put this up is - i want to share with other and get feed back. And hope some1 can tell me how to adjust my d40/d70 so that I can get out of camera photo the same as i see it on CDISPLAY program...

I tried adjust enhance, Vivid, Vivid+, saturation, hue... but didnt get the result i want.

If you are the type of person who like colorfull photo - then look at your photo through CDISPLAY and be dazzle.

NOTE: it does not save any enhancement/modification to your image.. only affect viewing so your image remain intact.

I know the pro-shooter will tell me off but i like brilliant color images and know there are plenty people out there do too..

Doug Gabler · Jul 27, 2008

I'm really not sure what you mean when you say you don't like your results when you say you like the results from this program you are use. I don't shoot NIkon but Canon's raw processing software has the ability to save a profile to use with batch processing. I'm sure Nikon has similar features. Have you posted this question in the Nikon forum that deals with your camera? You may also want to post it in the retouching or PC forum also. Good luck, both nice cameras and you should be able to get the results you want.

niah said:
Hi all,

I have been using Nikon camera for a while and own a D70 and now a D40.

I am not very happy with the color rendering of Nikon because I am a
newbie who like quality resolution of DSLR but hates reprocessing and
that what lead me to get the D40.. an improvement on the D70's
dullness but still not to my desire.

Every time i review picture using ulead explorer the picture look not
as colorfull as I would like.

Then i tried using a program call CDISPLAY - it is free and people
use it to read comic on computer (scan - jpeg compressed to ext. CBR)
This program give default option of enhancing color and that when I
notice my photos look great (to me) when viewing with this program.
What it did was color ballance all photo view through it by default
(can be turn off) and that really pump up the color.

Just google CDISPLAY and you can find many link to it. It free b/c
its open source software.

The reason I put this up is - i want to share with other and get feed
back. And hope some1 can tell me how to adjust my d40/d70 so that I
can get out of camera photo the same as i see it on CDISPLAY
program...

I tried adjust enhance, Vivid, Vivid+, saturation, hue... but didnt
get the result i want.

If you are the type of person who like colorfull photo - then look at
your photo through CDISPLAY and be dazzle.

NOTE: it does not save any enhancement/modification to your image..
only affect viewing so your image remain intact.

I know the pro-shooter will tell me off but i like brilliant color
images and know there are plenty people out there do too..

--
Doug

http://douginoviedo.smugmug.com/

chuxter · Jul 27, 2008

I'm sorry you have not been satisfied with the colors you see on your monitor. I am dissapointed that you concluded that Nikon was the source of your unhappiness. And I'm confused that you found that CDisplay was the solution?

niah said:
Hi all,

I have been using Nikon camera for a while and own a D70 and now a D40.

I am not very happy with the color rendering of Nikon because I am a
newbie who like quality resolution of DSLR but hates reprocessing and
that what lead me to get the D40.. an improvement on the D70's
dullness but still not to my desire.

Every time i review picture using ulead explorer the picture look not
as colorfull as I would like.

Perhaps ulead explorer was your problem? I have tried a few ulead programs and was not pleased with them. But I wonder if perhaps you have your camera(s) set to aRGB or something? Perhaps CDisplay converts to sRGB?

niah said:
Then i tried using a program call CDISPLAY - it is free and people
use it to read comic on computer (scan - jpeg compressed to ext. CBR)
This program give default option of enhancing color and that when I
notice my photos look great (to me) when viewing with this program.
What it did was color ballance all photo view through it by default
(can be turn off) and that really pump up the color.

Hmmm... I downloaded CDisplay and tried it with it's default settings. I was expecting it to be terrible, after your comic strip comment...but to my surprise, it looked fine! So I compared it with the standard software that I use when I want a full-screen display, Faststone Image Viewer. Gosh, it looked almost identical! I even went to the trouble of doing screen captures from both programs:

CDisplay's defaults include Color Balance (C+B) and Yellow Reduction (C+Y). At least with my test image (above) those settings didn't do diddly. I also tried some other images and never could see much difference with these options on vs off. But I guess you could be more sensitive to yellow than I am?

niah said:
Just google CDISPLAY and you can find many link to it. It free b/c
its open source software.

Faststone is also free, prolly because they don't charge for it. ;-)

niah said:
The reason I put this up is - i want to share with other and get feed
back. And hope some1 can tell me how to adjust my d40/d70 so that I
can get out of camera photo the same as i see it on CDISPLAY
program...

I tried adjust enhance, Vivid, Vivid+, saturation, hue... but didnt
get the result i want.

Perhaps you should post examples of your photography, including versions that don't look "good" in your opinion. Do the screen capture method that I did?

niah said:
If you are the type of person who like colorfull photo - then look at
your photo through CDISPLAY and be dazzle.

I like color when it's appropriate and in good taste. Some of my favorite pix are B&W though. I DON'T like oversaturated colors! But from what I see, I'm not sure that you do either (although at first it seemed that you might be totally blind or something?).

niah said:
NOTE: it does not save any enhancement/modification to your image..
only affect viewing so your image remain intact.

niah said:
I know the pro-shooter will tell me off but i like brilliant color
images and know there are plenty people out there do too..

Nah, you're the only one that I know of. ;-)

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
Bridge Blog: http://www.here-ugo.com/BridgeBlog/
'Experience: Discovering that a claw hammer will bend nails.
Epiphany: Discovering that a claw hammer is two tools...'

niah · Jul 27, 2008

Thanks for your response and great work with the posting of screen capture.

I am sorry Nikon if it sound like i am dispointed at nikon's product, i am not. I like the D40 and the D70 very much. But the fact remains that I like the image produced from those camera more when they showed on CDISPLAY and this program did a color balance (i didnt notice much with the yellow color remove option on/off) to the image before displaying it.

Chuxter: If your program shows identical color and contrast to that from CDISPLAY then it must be doing the same to the photo prior to display...I bet 10c on that.

Since I dont know how to post photo of screen capture.. could you do compare again using another viewer such as MS fax picture viewer (I am assuming u have MS windows

I am sure you would see the different - because I tested on 3 different computers and screens... all shows nicer image from CDISPLAY.

I haven't got a calibrated monitor and may be Ulead explorer should not be use to view photo....but I did set my camera to sRGBIII (as per kenrockwell - he like strong vibrant color like I do

- Actually i found that if I use the color RGB filter on my photos in the D40 i can make the photo shows just as good as that in CDISPLAY-- but this is a pain taking task just to get the vibrant color jpeg (because it is a per photo in-camera edit) . I thought i be smart and tried to apply the change to a few photos and use those photo for WB preset but the D40 refuse to accept the modifed photos--&^%$&^%$&^%$&!

By the way - I had a chance to compare my D70s photos to that of my little brother's canon 400D - his photo looks great when view through MS fax/picture viewer. When I go back to ozie for his wedding in November ill compare my "new" D40 to his 400D again.

I did some play with CDISPLAY just now and notice that what it does is very similar to up the contrast of the photo... I will try up the contrast setting in my D40 tonight to see if I can get same vibrant coloring... (this and sharpness I have always left as AUTO so far...)

I'll be back!

niah · Jul 27, 2008

Just had a chance to download Fastone and compare.. it gave same color rendering as that os MS fax/picture viewer and Ulead.. no different. So it is not the same as CDISPLAY on my monitor... no enhancement found... and I cant get a photo on here to give comparison.. I have a bit of trouble ftp to my website to post a photo to link this to.. but if you can email me ill send you photo of my screen capture.. sotracihug.co.nz please no spam.

I tried to change tone (no contrast setting found) on my D40 just now and took some photo.. the shot just not the same as in CDISPLAY.. sigh.

May be ill have to save up for a hardware calibration for my monitor or something.... just too much for a newbie though.

chuxter · Jul 28, 2008

niah said:
Thanks for your response and great work with the posting of screen
capture.

I am sorry Nikon if it sound like i am dispointed at nikon's product,
i am not. I like the D40 and the D70 very much. But the fact
remains that I like the image produced from those camera more when
they showed on CDISPLAY and this program did a color balance (i didnt
notice much with the yellow color remove option on/off) to the image
before displaying it.

Chuxter: If your program shows identical color and contrast to that
from CDISPLAY then it must be doing the same to the photo prior to
display...I bet 10c on that.

It's good that you didn't bet much, 'cause you be wrong. I prolly should have made this comment before: On my computer, ALL my various software programs that display JPEG images look the same! I have several flavors of Photoshop, Faststone, XnView, Corel PhotoPaint, etc. On my computer (as I showed by sending you screen shots), CDisplay looks just like everything else does. My monitor is also not "calibrated" (because it's kinda dumb to try to calibrate a TN LED display!).

niah said:
Since I dont know how to post photo
of screen capture.. could you do compare again using another viewer
such as MS fax picture viewer (I am assuming u have MS windows I
am sure you would see the different - because I tested on 3 different
computers and screens... all shows nicer image from CDISPLAY.

As I guessed before, your "problem" is probably that you have done something in your camera to cause it to produce a file that (for some reason) CDisplay handles differently than everything else. If I could get one of your pix straight from the camera, I might be able to help more? My e-mail address is in my profile. Why not send me a pic as an attachment?

niah said:
I haven't got a calibrated monitor and may be Ulead explorer should
not be use to view photo....but I did set my camera to sRGBIII (as
per kenrockwell - he like strong vibrant color like I do -
Actually i found that if I use the color RGB filter on my photos in
the D40 i can make the photo shows just as good as that in CDISPLAY--
but this is a pain taking task just to get the vibrant color jpeg
(because it is a per photo in-camera edit) . I thought i be smart
and tried to apply the change to a few photos and use those photo for
WB preset but the D40 refuse to accept the modifed
photos--&^%$&^%$&^%$&!

I have no idea what "the color RGB filter...in the D40" is???

niah said:
By the way - I had a chance to compare my D70s photos to that of my
little brother's canon 400D - his photo looks great when view through
MS fax/picture viewer. When I go back to ozie for his wedding in
November ill compare my "new" D40 to his 400D again.

This again says that YOU have screwed up something in your camera. Why not do a RESET and see if pix that haven't been fiddled around with look better?

niah said:
I did some play with CDISPLAY just now and notice that what it does
is very similar to up the contrast of the photo... I will try up the
contrast setting in my D40 tonight to see if I can get same vibrant
coloring... (this and sharpness I have always left as AUTO so far...)

With ANY dSLR that I'm aware of, the range of possible adjustments is large enough for a user to create any "look" that they want. In your case, I'm sure you've created a "look" that you don't like...probably by accident.

You REALLY should be over in the D40/D70 forums where you can discuss this with people who have a D40 or D70.

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
Bridge Blog: http://www.here-ugo.com/BridgeBlog/
'Experience: Discovering that a claw hammer will bend nails.
Epiphany: Discovering that a claw hammer is two tools...'

chuxter · Jul 28, 2008

niah said:
Just had a chance to download Fastone and compare.. it gave same
color rendering as that os MS fax/picture viewer and Ulead.. no
different. So it is not the same as CDISPLAY on my monitor... no
enhancement found... and I cant get a photo on here to give
comparison.. I have a bit of trouble ftp to my website to post a
photo to link this to.. but if you can email me ill send you photo of
my screen capture.. sotracihug.co.nz please no spam.

That doesn't seem to be a valid e-mail address. I assume you meant, [email protected]? Don't send me a screen capture...send me a virgin file from your camera (one that looks different in CDisplay).

niah said:
I tried to change tone (no contrast setting found) on my D40 just now
and took some photo.. the shot just not the same as in CDISPLAY..
sigh.

"Tone" seems to be the D40 term for "Contrast". I think this is because Nikon thinks that D40 owners don't have the mental HP to understand "contrast"... ;-)

Which setting did you try? Did you use the "+2" setting? Did you try the "Custom" setting?

niah said:
May be ill have to save up for a hardware calibration for my monitor
or something.... just too much for a newbie though.

Save your money.

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
Bridge Blog: http://www.here-ugo.com/BridgeBlog/
'Experience: Discovering that a claw hammer will bend nails.
Epiphany: Discovering that a claw hammer is two tools...'

niah · Aug 1, 2008

My PC had virus infection and I had to rebuild from scratch.. thus delay in response to this.. I have since emailed you photo of jpg from camera and screen capture for your review. I tested the photo you post on here and you are right.. it doesnt show much different if any at all viewing from various program... so i am puzzled ATM. Either my photo got some profile embeded that cause programs to display differently or your photo was a poor sample for comparison... ?????.. I hope you can checkout my photo and enlighten me on this... (scratching my head right now!)..

Evan Richardson · Aug 3, 2008

this is great...im lol'ing so hard

niah · Aug 4, 2008

Evan - are you laughing at me or with me?

Here are two photo for every1 else to see..(I already send 1 to chuxter).

The top photo is viewed by CDISPLAY, the second is by standard MS picture fax viewer, which would be the same as Ulead etc.

chuxter · Aug 4, 2008

I received the FIRST of niah's pix and sent this private e-mail in reply...

niah said:
First, she's really pretty. Second, it's a pretty good pic. I do think that it's
a bit "cold" (too blue) and the histogram shows that it's a tad underexposed.

niah said:
I looked at the pic with several programs (CDisplay, Faststone, PSE6) and
it looks the same to me.

niah said:
I played with it in PSE6 and after trying several approaches, I decided that
a combo of:

niah said:
1) using Levels to "correct" the exposure
2) using Adjust Color for Skin Tone to warm things up a bit
3) using PTlens plugin to correct the vignetting

niah said:
was the best approach...

niah said:
I noted that you had the contrast bumped up. I didn't add any contrast
or saturation...it lookd OK to me with your settings.

niah said:
There is nothing wrong with your camera...it's exactly what you paid for. You > just need to "finish" the job by doing a few simple edits.

Then I followed up with another e-mail...

niah said:
I had everything at their default settings, as far as I know (I looked).

niah said:
Unfortunately, the CDisplay program isn't what you need. It just affects
how the picture looks on YOUR screen. Yes, you can save the file
with CDisplay, but none of the display changes that you like are saved
(ie, the saved files seems identical to the otiginal...I tried this). You need
an EDITOR!!!

niah said:
There are some simple editors out there. There are some cheap/free
editors. Although I DO know how imposing learning to use a computer
program can be, it's necessary to do this occasionally. With DP, taking the
pic is only 1/2 of the job.

niah said:
You need to learn how to quickly edit your pix...just the really basic stuff.
It can be VERY fast, once you learn how.

niah said:
I made 3 changes: Exposure, White Balance, and Vignetting. Vignetting
is either a lens or lighting issue...I can't tell for sure, but it's probably a
lens issue. You can "fix' this by buying a better lens or by using the existing
lens at less than the biggest FL. Exposure is something the photographer
has control over. You can learn how to adjust your D40 to get a better
exposure. This has to be checked OFTEN, as the setting for every pic is
different. But it's easy to do once you admit the need and learn how. WB is
also something you have control over. If you used flash for this pic (the EXIF
data was confusing), it was a unit held in your left hand. There may have been

other ambient light in the room? These "mixed" lighting settings can be really confusing to the camera...when it tries to do an Auto-WB, it can mis! There are
many techniques for getting the WB right...too many to start relating them
here!

niah said:
When you get the exposure and WB correct, you won't need to do ANY
editing! But knowing how, is valuable. Often the photographer screws up and
having some PP skills will alow you to recover some of the priceless pix you
ruined...

niah said:
Like the little quote at the bottom of my dpr posts says, it's valuable to know
that a hammer will bend nails (if you don't use it right), but truly empowering
when you discover that a claw hammer will REMOVE those bent nails!

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
Bridge Blog: http://www.here-ugo.com/BridgeBlog/
'Experience: Discovering that a claw hammer will bend nails.
Epiphany: Discovering that a claw hammer is two tools...'

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Enhanced Image Viewer - pump out color & lift contrast.

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