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Anyone Heard of Piccure+?

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Hi Roger,

There are in essence two approaches: routines that depend on some "unsharp masking approach" and "deconvolution".

- "Unsharp masking": Those got quite sophisticated (e.g. SmartSharpen, Lens Softness correction) with varying degrees of "correction" throughout the image to achieve a "perceived edge-to-edge sharpness". As the aberrations increase (I am talking optical aberrations) these approaches will yield "less perfect" solutions as they "can not describe the complex nature of larger optical aberrations" accurately. But they can account for varying degrees of sharpness across the image. Advantage: it's fast.

- "Deconvolution". Deconvolution involves a two step process: first determine the aberration, describe them (piccure+ does so through PSFs) and then reverse them. The aberrations are usually assumed to be a) either the same across the image (doesn't work for optical aberrations) or b) have a specific shape (also doesn't work well for larger aberrations). piccure+ is the only solution capable of determining (complex) optical aberrations which are not the same across the image (less sharpness towards edges) and vary in shape. Advantage over "lens profiles" is that the "modeled over true error" is minimized as the optical aberrations are determined for the image itself uniquely. Thus also works for "self built lenses", scans, etc.

piccure+ has a more complex approach in determining and reversing the optical aberrations. So bottom line is: the programs mentioned are not using the same technology and the results won't be the same. For small aberrations, it may be hard to always tell the differences between "unsharp masking", "deconvolution" and the respective software solutions. But at "fast apertures", "full-format" camera owners will be very happy with the piccure+ results - especially in the edges...

As for the price increase: current pricing is 129 USD (+VAT in the EU; can't change tax...). That constitutes a 18% increase over it's introduction price. People kept telling us "I care less about the price but more about the speed and quality - make it faster". So we have hired additional people for making it faster. Our customers are primarily professional photographers which are less price sensitive and value quality and speed the most. Making it faster is no easy task, and it ain't cheap.

Best,

Lui

Co-Founder piccure+
 
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piccure said:
.....People kept telling us "I care less about the price but more about the speed and quality - make it faster". So we have hired additional people for making it faster. Our customers are primarily professional photographers which are less price sensitive and value quality and speed the most. Making it faster is no easy task, and it ain't cheap.

Best,

Lui

Co-Founder piccure+
Click to expand...
In the high tech product company where I once worked, R&D had a saying about product development: "It can be good, fast, and cheap" - pick two.

You are correct.
 
Thank you so much Luis, I much appreciate the explanation; I now better understand what Piccure+ is doing differently.
 
piccure said:
(...)People kept telling us "I care less about the price but more about the speed and quality - make it faster". So we have hired additional people for making it faster. Our customers are primarily professional photographers which are less price sensitive and value quality and speed the most. Making it faster is no easy task, and it ain't cheap.
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OpenCL version in the future?
 
Vernon D Rainwater said:
I went to the 2nd link and read all the narrative, however; I was surprised there were no visual comparative Photos that compare the usual to the results after applying the discussed software.

Have you seen any Photo Comparisons -- if so, where -- I would like to take a look.

My Regards -- Vernon...

Edit to add: I should have viewed the other link before my post. there are a few comparisons there.
Click to expand...
This is an updated review, with a couple of shots.

Loading…

www.thephotovideoguy.ca
 
CoreyCoop said:
Doublehelix said:
Fred T said:
Yes, I know, that's why I wrote Piccure and not Piccure+. Thought there might be some relevance because it is a review not by the company that made it.
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Oh, OK, got it. I just wanted to make sure that was clear to everyone, and I know I certainly did not notice that you referenced the older version.

--
James
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The review has been re-done using piccure+ Oct. 2014.
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I have purchased Piccure+ and it is up to date. However I cannot see nor add it to LR 2015. Is there a way to do this?

--
"There is a little of not done yet in all of us."
John Madden, football coach
 
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Jim B (MSP) said:
piccure said:
.....People kept telling us "I care less about the price but more about the speed and quality - make it faster". So we have hired additional people for making it faster. Our customers are primarily professional photographers which are less price sensitive and value quality and speed the most. Making it faster is no easy task, and it ain't cheap.

Best,

Lui

Co-Founder piccure+
Click to expand...
In the high tech product company where I once worked, R&D had a saying about product development: "It can be good, fast, and cheap" - pick two.

You are correct.
Click to expand...
 
marc petzold said:
Jim B (MSP) said:
piccure said:
.....People kept telling us "I care less about the price but more about the speed and quality - make it faster". So we have hired additional people for making it faster. Our customers are primarily professional photographers which are less price sensitive and value quality and speed the most. Making it faster is no easy task, and it ain't cheap.

Best,

Lui

Co-Founder piccure+
Click to expand...
In the high tech product company where I once worked, R&D had a saying about product development: "It can be good, fast, and cheap" - pick two.

You are correct.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I wanted to give it a try but it won't install. It times itself out. I'm using Windows 7.

Any suggestions?
 
I downloaded this last night and gave it a try, perhaps I was looking for more but it didn't give me the stellar results that I was expecting - in fact I wasn't really able to see what it was giving me above the high pass sharpening that I do already.

it may be the images that I was trying it upon, but at the moment I can't justify spending money on something that does yield better than I get today

sorry
 
WIMorrison said:
I downloaded this last night and gave it a try, perhaps I was looking for more but it didn't give me the stellar results that I was expecting - in fact I wasn't really able to see what it was giving me above the high pass sharpening that I do already.

it may be the images that I was trying it upon, but at the moment I can't justify spending money on something that does yield better than I get today

sorry
Click to expand...
I have Piccure+, and I'd have to say the results vary. I use it on some images where I really want the clearest details possible.

I start with TIFF images, as I want to do the RAW processing in DxO OP, so that should be kept in mind; perhaps it's better with pure RAWs.

Some images have seen considerable improvement, others hardly any. Unsurprisingly, much depends on the image itself, the Piccure+ settings, the lens used and the RAW processing.

It's easy to overcook the settings; my best results with my better lenses have been "Lens+", "Quality+", "Micro", "Rendering - 15", "Denoise" Off.

IMO, anyone considering this software should do an extensive trial with multiple images and different settings on RAW software (if not using the internal processor).

The company has been very good with free updates, and I feel the benefits justified the purchase, but it's very much an individual decision.

I should also add that IMO the UI is one of the worst and least intuitive I've seen in recent years; very odd and batch-oriented. They specifically explain in the documentation why they do it that way, but I am unconvinced. :-)

But when I want to optimize overall image sharpness, it's been very helpful at times.
 
Austinian said:
WIMorrison said:
I downloaded this last night and gave it a try, perhaps I was looking for more but it didn't give me the stellar results that I was expecting - in fact I wasn't really able to see what it was giving me above the high pass sharpening that I do already.

it may be the images that I was trying it upon, but at the moment I can't justify spending money on something that does yield better than I get today

sorry
Click to expand...
I have Piccure+, and I'd have to say the results vary. I use it on some images where I really want the clearest details possible.

I start with TIFF images, as I want to do the RAW processing in DxO OP, so that should be kept in mind; perhaps it's better with pure RAWs.

Some images have seen considerable improvement, others hardly any. Unsurprisingly, much depends on the image itself, the Piccure+ settings, the lens used and the RAW processing.

It's easy to overcook the settings; my best results with my better lenses have been "Lens+", "Quality+", "Micro", "Rendering - 15", "Denoise" Off.

IMO, anyone considering this software should do an extensive trial with multiple images and different settings on RAW software (if not using the internal processor).

The company has been very good with free updates, and I feel the benefits justified the purchase, but it's very much an individual decision.

I should also add that IMO the UI is one of the worst and least intuitive I've seen in recent years; very odd and batch-oriented. They specifically explain in the documentation why they do it that way, but I am unconvinced. :-)

But when I want to optimize overall image sharpness, it's been very helpful at times.
Click to expand...
I should probably try out the latest version.

--

Jim
"It's all about the light"
 
Jim B (MSP) said:
Austinian said:
WIMorrison said:
I downloaded this last night and gave it a try, perhaps I was looking for more but it didn't give me the stellar results that I was expecting - in fact I wasn't really able to see what it was giving me above the high pass sharpening that I do already.

it may be the images that I was trying it upon, but at the moment I can't justify spending money on something that does yield better than I get today

sorry
Click to expand...
I have Piccure+, and I'd have to say the results vary. I use it on some images where I really want the clearest details possible.

I start with TIFF images, as I want to do the RAW processing in DxO OP, so that should be kept in mind; perhaps it's better with pure RAWs.

Some images have seen considerable improvement, others hardly any. Unsurprisingly, much depends on the image itself, the Piccure+ settings, the lens used and the RAW processing.

It's easy to overcook the settings; my best results with my better lenses have been "Lens+", "Quality+", "Micro", "Rendering - 15", "Denoise" Off.

IMO, anyone considering this software should do an extensive trial with multiple images and different settings on RAW software (if not using the internal processor).

The company has been very good with free updates, and I feel the benefits justified the purchase, but it's very much an individual decision.

I should also add that IMO the UI is one of the worst and least intuitive I've seen in recent years; very odd and batch-oriented. They specifically explain in the documentation why they do it that way, but I am unconvinced. :-)

But when I want to optimize overall image sharpness, it's been very helpful at times.
Click to expand...
I should probably try out the latest version.
Click to expand...
I'll be interested in your results; please post your impressions if you do.

I should add that my opinions here are based on full-res TIFFs output from Piccure+; low-res and/or JPEG output images might require different settings.
 
My experience with Piccure+ is that it improves images from average cameras and lenses like from cell phones and point and shoots. With images from my D810 there is not much that can be seen from its processing. The latest version is a little faster than previous versions but there seems to be a lot of analysis going on.
 
digital ed said:
My experience with Piccure+ is that it improves images from average cameras and lenses like from cell phones and point and shoots. With images from my D810 there is not much that can be seen from its processing. The latest version is a little faster than previous versions but there seems to be a lot of analysis going on.
Click to expand...
Hi Ed,

personal experience varies of course - and I am glad that for "less great cameras" you could see some improvements. The vast majority of our users uses it for high-end equipment though (I am not saying that your personal observations are incorrect). Why would a solution like piccure+ be any good in combination with high end equipment?
  • Optical low pass filters deliberately blur the image irrespective of the lens you use (the D810 does not have one any more, but the D800 does...)
  • Copy-to-copy variation in lenses can be quite significant (don't trust me - but maybe Roger Cicala: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/02/optical-quality-assurance/ )
  • Most lenses either suffer from back-/or front-focusing. Unless you calibrate the lens/camera combination the picture may be slightly out of focus
  • The very fast majority of high-resolution lenses lose significant sharpness towards the edges at fast apertures (just take a look at the lens tests here on dpreview)
  • There are only very few lenses which can actually match a 24+ MP sensor resolution
  • Micro-shakes nearly affect every image...
All those points are in essence limiting "image sharpness due to design constraints and variation in manufacturing" that can make a $$$ difference in sharpness. You may be lucky and end up with just "the right combo" - but unless you spend a lot of time evaluating different copies of a lens prior to purchasing it, adjust the focus-system of your camera, etc. - you may "throw a lot of your money out of the window". All of those issues primarily affect high-end equipment and simply throwing more money into the game doesn't help. The opposite may actually be the case - as copy-to-copy variation may actually increases for more expensive and complex lenses (e.g. http://www.dpreview.com/articles/92...copy-variation-test-to-short-telephoto-primes ).

To cut a long story short: over the past years, we learned a lot about the reasons for lack of image sharpness and even though piccure+ started out aimed towards "photographers with less money in the game" it soon became apparent that actually the "high-end segment" liked it much more. There is so much variation in this game that there is no efficient way to "get rid of those optical aberrations" than by adaptive approaches. Measuring / calibrating lenses doesn't help either...

However, your mileage may certainly vary... And I certainly don't challenge you have made these observations... In Quality+, piccure+ should be at least 50% faster in version 3 though...

Best,

Lui, Co-Founder
 
piccure said:
digital ed said:
My experience with Piccure+ is that it improves images from average cameras and lenses like from cell phones and point and shoots. With images from my D810 there is not much that can be seen from its processing. The latest version is a little faster than previous versions but there seems to be a lot of analysis going on.
Click to expand...
Hi Ed,

personal experience varies of course - and I am glad that for "less great cameras" you could see some improvements. The vast majority of our users uses it for high-end equipment though (I am not saying that your personal observations are incorrect). Why would a solution like piccure+ be any good in combination with high end equipment?
  • Optical low pass filters deliberately blur the image irrespective of the lens you use (the D810 does not have one any more, but the D800 does...)
  • Copy-to-copy variation in lenses can be quite significant (don't trust me - but maybe Roger Cicala: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/02/optical-quality-assurance/ )
  • Most lenses either suffer from back-/or front-focusing. Unless you calibrate the lens/camera combination the picture may be slightly out of focus
  • The very fast majority of high-resolution lenses lose significant sharpness towards the edges at fast apertures (just take a look at the lens tests here on dpreview)
  • There are only very few lenses which can actually match a 24+ MP sensor resolution
  • Micro-shakes nearly affect every image...
All those points are in essence limiting "image sharpness due to design constraints and variation in manufacturing" that can make a $$$ difference in sharpness. You may be lucky and end up with just "the right combo" - but unless you spend a lot of time evaluating different copies of a lens prior to purchasing it, adjust the focus-system of your camera, etc. - you may "throw a lot of your money out of the window". All of those issues primarily affect high-end equipment and simply throwing more money into the game doesn't help. The opposite may actually be the case - as copy-to-copy variation may actually increases for more expensive and complex lenses (e.g. http://www.dpreview.com/articles/92...copy-variation-test-to-short-telephoto-primes ).

To cut a long story short: over the past years, we learned a lot about the reasons for lack of image sharpness and even though piccure+ started out aimed towards "photographers with less money in the game" it soon became apparent that actually the "high-end segment" liked it much more. There is so much variation in this game that there is no efficient way to "get rid of those optical aberrations" than by adaptive approaches. Measuring / calibrating lenses doesn't help either...

However, your mileage may certainly vary... And I certainly don't challenge you have made these observations... In Quality+, piccure+ should be at least 50% faster in version 3 though...

Best,

Lui, Co-Founder
Click to expand...
Hi Lui,

I appreciate your response. I am using the latest version and did notice faster processing though did not do any timing.

I do not assume that I have camera and lenses that are "optimum" but in the past visual observation has not shown me noticeable improvement in my D810 images (other than sharpening) vs cameras/lenses that I would consider point and shoot. Your comments interest me and I will do further evaluation to see the improvements Piccure+ will make to my "good" images.

As a last note I have had Piccure+ since it was first introduced and certainly the speed of processing is dramatically faster than the original version. Any comparisons I will make will be in regard to the processing done by DXO Optics Pro 11, Lightroom CC and other RAW developers.
 
Well I finally had time to try this out. My hope was that it might help the corners on otherwise quality lenses. My first goal was to help the corners on the 12-40/2.8 when shot using pixel shift high res on an E-M5II. This did not work at all, the piccure+ output following all their recommendations and trying around ten different processing variations always lost significant detail compared to just processing in Lightroom.

I worried that maybe pixel shift was the issue or too large an input file was making piccure+ unhappy. So I tried it with a bog standard 16MP input, again following all piccure+ recommendations and trying multiple variations in processing parameters. Same result, the piccure+ results no matter what I tried resulted in lost detail compared to Lightroom only processing.

Now the 12-40 is a very good lens, and while piccure+ claims it helps even nice lenses I thought it would be most fair to give it a somewhat less quality lens since that is what they primarily advertise. So I processed a shot with a 14-45/3.5-5.6 kit lens which has corners that certainly go a bit soft even stopped down a bit. This was also shot with a different camera (GH2 instead of E-M5II) in case there was some weird issue with E-M5II files. Once again, the same result - piccure+ losing detail compared with basic Lightroom processing.

I submitted a ticket over a week ago, no response.

I also went back and looked at the various reviews and samples posted. Well, almost all of them compare piccure+ output to entirely unsharpened input. That's a ridiculous comparison of course. Furthermore the ones that do compare with a sharpened file usually compare with bog standard USM sharpening which is ridiculously weak tea.

My comparisons have been done with actually useful and intelligently selected LR settings. Namely adjusting the "Detail" slider higher as this engages some basic deconvolution sharpening with LR/ACR itself. My particular settings are usually around Amount 40, Radius 0.8, Detail 80, Masking 30 with a Luminance NR of 10. My input to piccure+ is with zero sharpening or NR from LR since that is what they specifically recommend (though I do allow LR to do CA correction, again their recommendation).

I've tried multiple piccure+ settings, most at Quality+ with a wide range of Aberrations and Rendering settings. The end results are always the same, piccure+ loses detail compared to just straight LR processing. All tests done with Denoise disabled in piccure+ (though I tested once with it turned on at a low setting just to confirm nothing funny was going on).

The most distressing thing it piccure+ fails the "processing Hippocratic oath" - first do no harm. It doesn't help corner softness any more than LR/ACR and at the same time destroys detail in the aberration free central part of the image.

Anyway, this seemed a really neat concept. I've seen advanced deconvolution at work and it can do a good job. But at least from all my test with their most recent software this takes ages and ages to process while doing a worse job than an extremely simplified deconvolution approach (such as LR/ACR or DxO would apply).

Representative sample below, piccure+ on the left and LR/ACR only on the right (enlarge to 100% viewing of course):

piccure+ on left, LR only on right, Panasonic 14-45/3.5-5.6 on GH2, crop from lower right corner.
piccure+ on left, LR only on right, Panasonic 14-45/3.5-5.6 on GH2, crop from lower right corner.

--
Ken W
See profile for equipment list
 

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