Paintshop Pro - in case anyone's interested

[MickinMD ★]

I have a confession to make.  I've said several times here that my smartphone photos are really good.  But the photos I take with my smartphone or even my 2"x4"x4" dual camera/camcorder do not come out as vibrant as I got from my old Nikon film camera, but I have a cheating way to make it so: Paintshop Pro.  I used to illegally download it but felt guilty because I use it so much so I bought Paintshop Pro X5 in 2013 on sale for about $50.

The rest of this message shows, in case anyone's interested in the method, what Paintshop Pro (PSP) easily does and the PSP script I wrote so I can batch convert an entire folder - the script will work on the latest versions of PSP.

I do two things with almost every photograph: Light & Clarity and Automatic Saturation Enhancement.

Here's the original picture (scaled smaller) from an Alcatel smartphone's so-so camera that I posted in the thread about dragons yesterday of my nephew Adam and I with a Komodo Dragon at the National Zoo in D.C in 2015:

Look at how the image pops after applying the Light & Clarity filter.  Adam's face is no longer in a deep shadow and the blades of grass, dragon's scales, bricks, clothes, etc. are more sharply defined. The two parameters can be adjusted up and down to fit the needs of each picture, but the "25" and "81" settings are standard and work fine most of the time:

Now, to make the colors more vibrant comes the Automatic Saturation Enhancement. In some pictures the change is dramatic. Here it makes the grass significantly greener, makes the yellows in the shirts stand out more, and gives a little more skin color:

I recently learned how to write PSP Scripts like the one below where I resize the picture, sharpen it (in case resizing blurred it), then apply the Light & Clarity and Auto. Sat. Enhancement filters.  PSP can automatically apply the script to every picture in a file folder of your choice, save it in form you want (jpg, etc.) and store in the same or different folder while preserving the originals.

If I wanted a different size, under # Resize I could simple change the width of 900 (pixels) to something else.  If I wanted to set a particular height I could put the pixel number where "None" is with height and move the "None" to Width - "None" keeps the aspect ratio correct.

If I didn't want to resize, I could simply get rid of the Resize and Sharpen sections and just apply the Light & Clarity and Auto. Sat. Enhancement filters.

If it turned out I needed stronger or weaker filters, I could adjust the settings in their sections before I batch process a folder:

PSP SCRIPT

from PSPApp import *

def ScriptProperties():
    return {
        'Author': u'Mickey Cashen',
        'Copyright': u'Mickey Cashen 2019',
        'Description': u'Resize to 900p width',
        'Host': u'PaintShop Pro',
        'Host Version': u'15.00'
        }

def Do(Environment):
    # EnableOptimizedScriptUndo
    App.Do( Environment, 'EnableOptimizedScriptUndo', {
            'GeneralSettings': {
                'ExecutionMode': App.Constants.ExecutionMode.Default,
                'AutoActionMode': App.Constants.AutoActionMode.Match,
                'Version': ((15,0,0),1)
                }
            })

    # Resize
    App.Do( Environment, 'Resize', {
            'AspectRatio': None,
            'CurrentDimensionUnits': App.Constants.UnitsOfMeasure.Pixels,
            'CurrentResolutionUnits': App.Constants.ResolutionUnits.PixelsPerIn,
            'Height': None,
            'MaintainAspectRatio': True,
            'Resample': True,
            'ResampleType': App.Constants.ResampleType.SmartSize,
            'ResizeAllLayers': True,
            'Resolution': 300,
            'Width': 900,
            'GeneralSettings': {
                'ExecutionMode': App.Constants.ExecutionMode.Default,
                'AutoActionMode': App.Constants.AutoActionMode.Match,
                'Version': ((15,0,0),1)
                }
            })

    # Sharpen
    App.Do( Environment, 'Sharpen', {
            'GeneralSettings': {
                'ExecutionMode': App.Constants.ExecutionMode.Default,
                'AutoActionMode': App.Constants.AutoActionMode.Match,
                'Version': ((15,0,0),1)
                }
            })

    # MIKE
    App.Do( Environment, 'ColorAdjustFillLightClarity', {
            'FillLightClarity': {
                'FillLight': 25,
                'Clarity': 81,
                'Sharpen': 0
                },
            'GeneralSettings': {
                'ExecutionMode': App.Constants.ExecutionMode.Default,
                'AutoActionMode': App.Constants.AutoActionMode.Match,
                'Version': ((15,0,0),1)
                }
            })

    # Auto Saturation Enhancement
    App.Do( Environment, 'AutoSaturationEnhancement', {
            'Bias': App.Constants.SaturationBias.MoreColorful,
            'Skintones': True,
            'Strength': App.Constants.SaturationStrength.Normal,
            'GeneralSettings': {
                'ExecutionMode': App.Constants.ExecutionMode.Default,
                'AutoActionMode': App.Constants.AutoActionMode.Match,
                'Version': ((15,0,0),1)
                }
            })

 

 

[jsharr ★]

If you were using it right, the photo above would come out like this

[Kzoo]

Brightness and full light can wash out detail.  Making something pop can oversaturate colors making them unnatural. POP isn't always better.  The first pic has the richest colors.  The second pic washes out some facial detail and the third pic puts color back in making skin tone is unnatural.

I'd keep the first pis and work on cropping and composition.... or use @jsharr's pic.  It's realistic.

#everyoneisacritic

[Chris...]

Shoot in RAW. More info for post processing.

 

[JerrySTL ★]

2 hours ago, jsharr said:

If you were using it right, the photo above would come out like this

With a really big shark behind them.

[jsharr ★]

Just now, JerrySTL said:

With a really big shark behind them.

I leave that stuff up to @Chris...

 

[Square Wheels]

1 hour ago, Chris... said:

Shoot in RAW. More info for post processing.

 

Yeah, but it was a public pic, and with a kid.  He'd get arrested.

[Kzoo]

3 hours ago, Chris... said:

Shoot in RAW. More info for post processing.

 

From his SmartPhone?

 

[Chris...]

2 hours ago, Kzoo said:

From his SmartPhone?

 

Google pixel supports RAW. As does the iPhone 7 and up

[Airehead]

i love to mess around with stuff like this.  thanks for the info

[Kzoo]

18 minutes ago, Chris... said:

Google pixel supports RAW. As does the iPhone 7 and up

I never checked that out

[Tizeye]

You know, owning X5, even though purchased in 2013, you qualify for upgrade pricing. Corel doesn't put "last 2 versions" or other BS on their upgrades. I used the original Paintshop when it was one of the "Must Have" shareware programs and then it made the jump to commercial program. Originally owned by JASC, adding the "Pro" to the name, then Corel. It was/is as direct competitor to Photoshop, doing about 90 to 95% of what Photoshop. It basically forced Adobe to create the Photoshop Elements to compete in the $99 pricepoint and make it as powerful as it is. When I started shooting for others, I dropped it and learned Photoshop...but am still eligible for an upgrade. In my current quest to "Dump Adobe and their subscription program" it is my #1 choice to return to, but unfortunately, they have never written it for a Mac. I need the Mac for Final Cut Pro replacing Premiere Pro for video...however the free version of Davinci Resolve (PC and Mac) is coming on strong. Technically, it would run in Parallels on a Mac (which I have for another stock charting (TC2000) program) but concerned how it would interact and file storage as link with a program on the Apple side. Found out the hard way one time when put a USB memory in to copy files to the Apple forgetting that I was on the Windows side. Copied the files fine but they were in the Dos formatted partition of the external hard drive and Apple's Finder couldn't locate them.