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Handy Script for boosting exposure in z750

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Bart Hickman

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Here's a Paintshop Pro preset I've been using. This is for the "curves" tool found in the menu

"Adjust-> Brightness and Contrast-> Curves..."

Just download the preset and put it in your preset directory--eg.,

C:\Program Files\Jasc Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 9\Presets

I don't know if it will work with Photoshop. If not, it's an ascii file so Photoshop users can open it in a text editor and copy the coordinates manually if desired.

This preset is based on actual measurements of the transfer curve of my z750 over its full dynamic range (somewhere around 8-9 f-stops) so it'll work for any photo regardless of how bright it is. When you apply it, it will brighten your image by 1-stop. Apply it twice to get 2-stops. This works quite a bit better than the previous method I had described using the level adjust tool.

I'm assuming all z750's would have the same curve. It's easy to test--just take two identical photos 1-stop apart in brightness. Then boost the darker one and see how closely it resembles the brighter one.

This is most useful for doing that virtual ISO1600 I'm always talking about.

Click on the link to view it or right-click to download it.

http://home.comcast.net/~zumbari/Z750_Virtual_ISO1600/Preset_ColorAdjustCurves_z750_plus_1_stop.PspScript

Bart
 
Great job Bart and thanks yet again for your great contributions to this forum. Hey, could you help a little with determining what values to use in the Paintshop Pro 9 Digital Camera Noise Removal screen? I don't know how to use that screen. Have any tips since you use it alot? Have you developed a camera preset for the Z750 that you use here if it produces consistent noise patterns? Thanks in advance.
 
Dave W. said:
Great job Bart and thanks yet again for your great contributions to
this forum. Hey, could you help a little with determining what
values to use in the Paintshop Pro 9 Digital Camera Noise Removal
screen? I don't know how to use that screen. Have any tips since
you use it alot? Have you developed a camera preset for the Z750
that you use here if it produces consistent noise patterns? Thanks
in advance.
Click to expand...
Thanks Dave. I haven't done camera presets for the Paintshop Pro NR--it seems to do a pretty good job with auto profiling. I usually leave the noise correction numbers all at 55, but sometimes slide them around between about 50 and 70. If you're really finicky about preserving as much detail as possible, then it is sometimes helpful to turn the "small" number down a bit and turn the "large" number up a bit.

Even at low ISO's, if you like those silky smooth SLR-like blue-skies, clouds, fog, et al, Paintshop does a fantastic job.

Bart
 
Here's the bestshot I use for the ISO1600 cheat. It's basically ISO400, sport mode, no flash, contrast and sharpness set to -1, EV set to -1. Everything else is default. My camera is set so the L/R buttons adjust the EV which for this application is like changing the ISO.

Change the filename as needed to avoid conflicts with other bestshots.

http://home.comcast.net/~zumbari/Z750_Virtual_ISO1600/UZ750001.JPE

Bart
 
right clicking does not get me to a point where i can download....
 
Oops. I didn't realize Paintshop uses different files for layers. Here's the layer version of the +1 stop exposure curve.

http://home.comcast.net/~zumbari/Z750_Virtual_ISO1600/Preset_NewAdjustmentLayerCurves_z750_plus_1_stop.PspScript

Put this in the same directory as I mentioned previously. Now you can add an adjustment layer of type "curves".

Using layers gives you the flexibility to fine adjust the amount of exposure change using the transparency adjustment. For example, set the transparancy to 33 to get a 1/3rd of a stop brightening. If you want 1.67 stops of brightening, add two layers--one that is fully opaque and the other at 67. You enter in whatever was the EV setting when you took the picture to undo the EV compensation.

I'll eventually get around to making a +2 stop curve.

Bart
 
 
Hi Bart,

I hope you'll forgive my ignorance but I have two questions:

1. I am wondering if you could explain what your scripts do? I have photoshop elements and would like to understand what your scripts are doing, at least from a manual perspective, so I could try it myself. (Since your scripts are for another program I assume they will not function in elements - nor do I have a clue how to install, etc.)

2. I loaded your virtual 1600 bestshot into my camera. Thank you! I plan to try it soon. I am wondering, however, if there is a way to see what the data is for the bestshot file. On the computer it looks just like a jpg file. I would like to see the settings though. I created some bestshots of my own but that was a couple weeks ago and now I don't remember what I started with (looking at the menu I cant tell that a warming filter was added etc. - I am not sure if there is a warming filter in the z750 but there are others - you get the point - I hope - I cant tell all the settings). I would also like to see if I could change them. I do understand there is a computer program out there called Bestman but I have a Mac and it is for PCs.

Thanks again for your posts. They are very helpful!

Eric.
 
You can look at most of the settings in the menu once you load the bestshot file to see what it does. That said, not everything unfortunately can be seen there, like filter settings. The Bestman program allows you to make settings in all fields including filters. This makes it superior to the method Casio allows you to use to add new Bestshots. I have a PC so didn't know Bestman doesn't work on a MAC. If so, perhaps you can try to get the developer to fix it.
 
Hi Eric,

What I posted are actually called presets. I'm sure your program has the same thing and it's even possible Photoshop will read the presets from Paintshop (I know it works the other way around--ie., Paintshop can read Photoshop presets.)

The presets I posted are simply altering the histogram of your image in almost exactly the same way as increasing the exposure of your camera would have. If you open the preset file, you can see a set of numbers that are describing the adjustment curve. Eg:

'RGB': [(0,0),(17,33),(33,56),(67,102),(102,148),(148,206),(167,226),(172,232),(198,255),(255,255)],

0,0 means a color value of 0 will stay at 0
17,33 means a color value of 17 gets changed to 33
and so on...
0 is black. 255 is white. So you can see everything is getting brightened.

The 'RGB' simply means it will do the same thing for all three color channels--which is what actually happens in the camera as well.

Paintshop does a nice smooth interpolation between these datapoints so it knows how to convert all 256 values. Again, Photoshop would also interpolate.

Worst case is you'll have to manually enter these values in Photoshop--there are only about 8 datapoints per preset. They took me only about 1 minute each to generate. Taking the original data from my camera took an hour or so.

I think it's worthwhile to learn about histograms and curves and gamma and all that sort of thing. Your photoshop manual is probably a good place to start.

As for the bestshot, I did it in bestman. I could have done it in the camera, but bestman saves me time and bestman is pretty inexpensive. Here's a screenshot from bestman for the ISO1600 bestshot so you can see all of the settings.



Bart
 
Thanks Bart,

I am still very new to digital imaging on the computer in general and Photoshop Elements in particular. I will take a look at the areas you mentioned and try to learn them. It sounds like that will help a lot. Also, thanks for the explaination about the numbers, it makes sense to me now. It is amazing to me what can be done in digital that I only dreamed about or experimented with trial and error with film/darkroom.

Eric.
 
Hey Bart,

THANKS for the Virtual 1600 Best Shot. I went to a historical farm museum here in Saint Paul, Minnesota and was able to get a lot of good indoor shots without having to use the flash! I tried taking shots both with and without flash and was VERY happy with the shots taken without the fash. They look more natural to me and have a much better "mood" more consistent with the subject. I have been toying with a best shot or two that uses flash but also has an EV value of -.7 or more to allow more of the natual lighting to be in the picture and less of the flash. More experrimentation needed but I like the results already. Whoever said this camera has a weak flash must have a defective one. This thing will light a dark room too bright for my tastes many times so I am looking for a way to have a subtle fill. I will let you know how my experiments come out.

FYI - I did post process this - All in Photoshop Elements. Noise reduction, cropped and played with levels etc.

Any constructive feedback is appreciated.

Eric.

 
Can you give any more detail on how you post processed that great pic in Elements? What settings for noise reduction? There are three settings in the reduce noise screen: strength, preserve details, reduce color noise. Any idea on just how best to use them?
 
I must admit I am really a novice when it comes to Elements (or any post processing). I am learning by trial and error at this point. I can tell you what I did to the image, but am embarrased to say I set the settings based on how they looked in the preview rather than knowing what I am doing with the tool. Perhaps someone else can help us both by giving us the short course in what these settings are for.

Anyway, here's what I did (not including contrast/brightness settings or cropping):

Unsharp mask (to sharpen the image):
Amount 120%
Radius .8
Threshold 3

Gausian Blur .5 (in hind sight it probably wasn't necessary to do this at all as the noise reduction probably would have been completely effective without this step).

Reduce Noise:
Strength 7
Preserve Details 60
Reduce Color Noise 83

OK, well I am sure that someone who knows what they are doing can tell me that I did this all wrong =) but I think I was able to get where I wanted to go in terms of image quality. Maybe it could be better?

I hope this helps you. And thanks for your favorable comment on the photo.

Eric.
 
You're welcome and thanks for the feedback! Your shot looks great!

The bestshot feature really allows streamlining of the creative process.

Bart
 
Bart,

Can you still provide the best shot for ISO1600 for the Z750 please? I have just bought one of these cameras and it would be a handy setting for me.

TIA.

--
http://www.donka.co.uk
 
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