Photokit Sharpener

A few questions...

 

Is this software still state of the art, or are there credible competitors?

 

What does it offer that Fraser's book doesn't?

 

Does anyone have comments on Photokit Color 2.0?

 

Thanks.

I looked at it briefly yesterday and did not find anything that it could do that regular photoshop CS3 could not do. In fact I learned a few few cool things trying to match their secrets.

> and did not find anything that it could do that regular photoshop CS3 could not do.

 

Output specific sharpening (based on empirical data) maybe ?

There's nothing in PhotoKit Sharpener that isn't 100% Photoshop driven. You could buy

Bruce's book and maybe figure out the best steps for sharpening.

 

What PKS does, and good luck mimic'ing it is it has the RIGHT settings for all the Photoshop

controls based on the input and output devices. This took Bruce and company a very long

time to come up with. So you could save $99 and spend a lot of time and media trying to get

the optimal settings or just use the product, understanding that its all Photoshop under the

hood, but Photoshop setup optimally for a particular task.

...or zoom at 100% view, apply a SMART SHARPEN and live happy AND save 99$ ; )

>...or zoom at 100% view, apply a SMART SHARPEN and live happy AND save 99$ ; )

 

Yah, right, It uses a brain probe to figure out the output device and optimizes the file for

that printer.

 

And if visual sharpening isn't bad enough (view the same sharpening on an LCD and then

a CRT), 100% isn't a useful zoom ratio depending on the output device. Lets see, its

anywhere from 72-96ppi, you're printing to an output device that varies from what, 133

linescreen to 2880 dpi? Go ahead and stick with Smart Sharpen at 100%. Save $99, make a

lot of ugly prints.

I've read the book and I'm now trying out the software. With CS3, either I'm missing something or the programme is a bit flakey. When I open some files, and go to File>Automate, it works fine. With others, it is greyed out. I can't identify any factor which would make it available some times and not others.

 

I certainly don't mind paying $99 for a sophisticated set of actions (assuming that I can get the actions to function properly), but I do wonder whether there is something to be said for working out this stuff for oneself.

>I certainly don't mind paying $99 for a sophisticated set of actions (assuming that I can

get the actions to function properly), but I do wonder whether there is something to be

said for working out this stuff for oneself.

 

By all means, go for it. And realize you can use the demo, fully functional for 7 days.

 

The reason its grayed out (and this is discussed in the manual) is you must be working on

an RGB document. Can be 8-bit or 16-bit.

Picking up on Mr. Rodney's point, Fraser says in the book (p. 11) that the true resolution of one's monitor = the width of the image area on the monitor divided by the number of horizontal pixels the monitor displays.

 

In his example, he says that his monitor is 16.875 inches and that, when run at 1600 x 1200, the resolution is 94.8 ppi. But 16.875 divided by 1600 is not 94.8. What am I missing in the arithmetic?

"you must be working on an RGB document"

 

Ahh, so if you are working on scans of black and white negatives, or colour negatives that you want to convert to black and white, the programme dictates a particular workflow.

 

Is there a reason why the document must be RGB?

LOL...

 

OK i should have say; use 100% to start, then go to 50% for magazine, 25% for inkjet...

 

or just hire me as a pro retoucher to optimized your file, but that is way over the 99$, that afterall youre better to take.

 

People seem to think that sharpen is rocket science, it must be when you start using photoshop...its not anymore when you send for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ dollar to be print everymonth : )

 

but i understnad Andrew point.

On the face of it, the fact that the document has to be RGB is quite a drawback for someone working in black and white. It means that the programme won't work if one scans greyscale, and won't work if one scans RGB and discards two of the layers. I guess it works if one scans a black and white negative in RGB and then uses CS3's black and white adjustment layer. Awful big files, though.

Yes, page 8 of the manual: one of the two requirements is that the file be 8 or 16 bit RGB.

 

That's a serious limitation if one does a lot of black and white.

>Is there a reason why the document must be RGB?

 

Well it allows PKS to do some stuff not possible in Grayscale. So, convert to RGB sharpen,

convert back to gray. Note, most people are working in RGB even with so called B&W work

(you'd want to send RGB data to nearly all the output devices supported, the exception would

be halftone output). Yes, the files are bigger but the sharpening options are more robust.

Andrew,

 

As you know, there are a couple of camps involved.

 

There are those who scan black and white in grayscale and those who scan RGB. As far as I know, many if not most of those in the latter camp select the channel that they want to use, and discard the rest, either as a first step or shortly after dust busting.

 

It is news to me that people who work with black and white maintain the file in RGB up to and including output. I've been playing around with doing that, as part of some experimenting that I've been doing with the CS3 Black and White Adjustment Layer, but I don't think that it is common, let alone the norm.

 

Do you have a reason for both scanning a black and white negative in RGB and maintaining the scan in RGB up to and including output?

 

For me, doing that just to use the Photokit Sharpener package is not obvious.

 

Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand your views on this, particularly as I have a high regard for your writing.

I'm not referring to scanning, mostly output. IF you want to print say a B&W to an Epson printer, you're

going to send it RGB data. Same with a Contone printer like a Lightjet. For halftone, you might send it

a color image (CMYK from RGB) or a single channel Grayscale file deputing on the print conditions. So,

short of halftone output, *most* users are sending RGB data to the output device even if they want a

B&W, monochrome image. And if you want to tone the image (warm, cool, split), well RGB is the only

game in town, you're not working in a single channel image.

 

Now for scanning. If the original is color and you intend to end up in B&W, scan color and use the

various tools (some provided in PhotoKit) to convert. If the original is monochrome, there's no reason

to scan color (although you realize the scanner IS scanning in color and just providing you a single

channel Grayscale file for size issues). A trilinear scanner scans in color no matter what you put in

front of it. What you get out of the software is a different story.

Thanks, that clarifies things, I thought that you were talking about scanning in colour and maintaining the channels throughout.

 

It's interesting that you don't seem to be a proponent of 48 bit colour scans of monochrome images. I've been playing with both colour and grayscale scans, and it is not at all clear to me that there is an advantage to the former.

I paid the $99 because the software works well, it saved me a lot of time (way more than $99 worth), and I use the brushes quite a bit which are handy. Having said that, I'm not a Photoshop expert.

I use PK Sharpener because it gives me terrific results, is incredibly smart about output

sharpening, and now my prints look great... they were disappointing before. Of course,

there is always another way, and experts always have more alternatives than those less

skilled. But why struggle?

 

I wish all my problems could be solved for $99. ;-)

I use PK Sharpener and it is worth the $99. I don't understand why someone would pay

hundreds or thousands of dollars for a computer, hundreds for Photoshop, and then balk at

$99 for a well-written, easy-to-use set of actions accompanied by an excellent manual. OK,

so it's just a bunch of actions. So what? Photoshop is just a bunch of CPU instructions. Why

pay $700 for Photoshop when you can use the free Xcode compiler (on a Mac) or Visual

Studio (on a PC) and just write your own?

Patrick,

 

I don't understand your position on this.

 

On the one hand, you have just made a post about what you consider to be essential books on Photoshop, one of which, in your view, is Bruce Fraser's book on sharpening.

 

On the other hand, you say that the Photoshop actions that are necessary if one wants to adopt Fraser's methodology are no more useful than Smart Sharpen and a waste of money.

 

Which is it?

 

Let me add that I am mystified by your enthusiasm for Leslie Alsheimer's book, Black and White in Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom. Having bought and read it, on your recommendation, my reaction is that apart from a decent chapter on colour management, if only because it is written in reasonably plain English, the book is lame.

The one thing that I will say about Fraser that gives me pause is that his book, which lists for US$40, talks about the actions but doe not lay them out expressly. Which is why there is a market for spending another US$100 on the download.

 

For people who have paid for the book, there is something pretty cheezy about that, so cheezy that one might wonder whether the whole thing is a con.

Rory, perhaps you need to pause. Bruce Fraser passed away not so long ago. A bit of respect maybe needed in order.

Andy, the gentleman died a year ago.

 

It is obvious that the Photokit package could have been included in its entirety in the book. Instead, the first 158 pages is a discussion of principles and tools, the last 46 are examples, and a total of 64 pages are about putting the principles and tools to work. The 64 pages give one a taste for the actions, indeed it includes a few, but does not lay them out in their entirety. As far as I am concerned, they should have been in an appendix.

 

To get what should have been in the appendix, one has to either make the actions oneself, drawing on the first 158 pages of the book, or pay another $100, on top of the $40 for the book, for Photokit. On the other hand, if one first buys Photokit, the accompanying 35 page .pdf manual is fine as far as it goes, but it would certainly help to buy the book.

 

What this comes down to is that Mr. Fraser, and now his estate, are selling a $140 product in two pieces.

 

Some people won't have a problem with that. Personally, I do. The lack of transparency, and the marketing method, make me wonder a about the entire exercise.

 

Cheers.

>It is obvious that the Photokit package could have been included in its entirety in the book.

Instead, the first 158 pages is a discussion of principles and tools, the last 46 are examples, and

a total of 64 pages are about putting the principles and tools to work.

 

Gee, why not suggest the book AND the software be free. Of $1.95.

 

>To get what should have been in the appendix, one has to either make the actions oneself,

drawing on the first 158 pages of the book, or pay another $100, on top of the $40 for the

book, for Photokit. On the other hand, if one first buys Photokit, the accompanying 35 page .pdf

manual is fine as far as it goes, but it would certainly help to buy the book.

 

Make up your mind, its either a value (to you) or its not. First off, you can work with the software

for 7 days, no one puts a gun to your head to buy it. And after purchase, you have 30 days for a

full refund if you still can't figure out what to do. As for the book, I guess you'd have to take this

up with however sold it to you. But you'd have to read the thing before you could make such a

decision and at that point, I think you owe it to all parties to simply pay for it.

 

BTW, what the heck do you do for a living?

 

>Some people won't have a problem with that. Personally, I do

 

So you own the software or just the book? If you have a problem with the software, you had

ample opportunity to get your money back. Maybe you still can. If not, stop bitching.