by Guy Lerner
September 10, 2003
Whatever the cause, poor exposure is unquestionably responsible for many a failed photograph. Fortunately for us, exposure is salvageable, dramatically so. Never before has it been easier to completely restore a poorly exposed photograph, to prize from the wreckage of a previously unusable shot a perfectly rendered product.
This is due in no small part to a handful of imaging enthusiasts, among them the likes of Harald Heim, who make it their business to develop software that cleans out the photographer’s dirty laundry (or saves his bacon, more like it).
Heim’s ColorWasher is a remarkable product, in itself the best all-round exposure correction tool I’ve worked with, but also one of the easiest to use and most affordable. The concept is simple enough, according to Heim: “a (Photoshop-compatible) plugin for correcting the colors, the contrast and the exposure of photos.” (In fact it can be used in dozens of graphics applications including Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact, Photo-Paint, Fireworks and Photoshop Elements).
Like Heim’s other software that I recently reviewed for Go Inside (FocalBlade – see my full review here) ColorWasher integrates the tools (automatic, semi-automatic and manual) for applying any number of colour- and contrast-related effects, from colour-to-monochrome conversions, colour cast corrections, and special effects.
A Rainbow of Riches
The sheer number of features and controls the software gives you would
actually detract from its usefulness if it weren’t for the interface options it
offers. For example, if you just want the software to give you basic correction
options based on its evaluation of your photograph, then click on ‘Quick &
Easy’ mode in the bottom-left corner of the interface, which takes away all but
the essential colour-correction buttons from the screen.
The basic controls, however effective, would probably be too limiting for more advanced users. Deselecting the ‘Quick & Easy’ mode reveals an arsenal of tweakable options; from setting the correct exposure, selecting the colour mode, adjusting the contrast, and everything in-between.
If the choices seem confusing, a glance at ColorWasher’s ‘help bar’ at the bottom right of the screen is all you need to figure out what each control is meant for. The help bar was first seen in FocalBlade, and is another way that Heim has made his software more accessible to novice users. Nice touch.
In the same way that a camera meter calculates the appropriate exposure for a scene, ColorWasher calculates the optimal exposure for your photo. ColorWasher works by sampling an area of your photo that should ideally be neutral. Unlike a camera meter, however, you can instantly see the effects of your selections on the final photo. You can also select a much larger (or smaller) part of the photo on which to base the exposure calculations, something not easily done with a camera meter.
In making
white-point and grey-point selections, ColorWasher is also amazingly apt at
correcting colour casts that may have crept into the photo. Most digital cameras
(particularly cheaper point-and-shoot varieties) don’t always return a perfect
colour rendition of a scene. A photo shot on a clear blue day may be rendered
with an unseemly bluish cast. In the field this can usually be corrected using
optical filters, and is easy enough to correct with the basic tools in image
editors like Photoshop. But nothing I’ve seen does it more quickly and
accurately than ColorWasher.
Shades of Grey
Of course, the advantage a camera has over a post-production tool like
ColorWasher is a blank canvas (or sensor) – its calculations are made before the
photo is captured. In ColorWasher you’re working with existing pixels, so
there’s a finite limit to what you can achieve. If the original photo was
exposed too far from the ‘acceptable’ exposure range, then there’s not much
ColorWasher can realistically do for you. A PhotoWiz it may be, but magic it
certainly ain’t.
This is evident when trying to balance out seriously underexposed images. While the midtones and highlights of a photo are pulled up, so is the noise in the shadows. Too much pulling and the noise begins to detract from the quality of the photo. Likewise overexposed photos; too much compensation, and marginally dark areas drop away into deep shadow. These are not criticisms of ColorWasher per se, because any exposure compensation tool will display the same shortcomings.
As with any digital photo, lost detail in the shadows (underexposure) is much easier to correct than lost details in the highlights (overexposure). Shadow detail is quite resilient, even though you risk adding noise to the photo when correcting it. Lost highlight details are lost, and no amount of tweaking in ColorWasher (or any other tool) will bring them back. If there’s a lesson in this, it’s to err on underexposure, but always aim for accurate exposure in the first place.
Not all Rosy
Like any software, ColorWasher has its quirks. The top-right of the screen is
lined with buttons that do little more than change the “look” of the plugin –
that is, the colour and texture of the background and interface buttons. In such
a powerful tool, interface gimmicks seem out of place, even vulgar, and water
down the appeal of the software for more serious users. Still, you could argue
Heim was having fun with his software, and many beginners who do little more
than press a cast button to fix up a photo will at least get some value out of
changing the default grey background to a picture of their favourite car or
holiday resort.
As a ‘generic’ tool, ColorWasher doesn’t use specific photographic terminology to define its actions. In other words, you’re not going to be able to add 1-stop of exposure compensation to a photo, but rather a percentage change on a slider. Again this is a moot point for non-photographers, but an optional interface calibrated to the photographic process would have been very handy, if only to lower the learning curve.
Conclusion
ColorWasher, like FocalBlade, is in a class of its own. There’s no other tool
(that I’ve seen anyway) that combines the depth of functionality and ease of use
for such complex and often harrowing tasks as cast removal and exposure
correction in one package. ColorWasher is accurate, malleable and infinitely
useful, and so affordable I can’t see any reason why a serious photographer or
graphic artist would want to be without it. Download an evaluation copy of ColorWasher today:
http://www.thepluginsite.com
I thought of scoring it four out of five GO INSIDE Magazine Review Lights just to get my average down, but I couldn’t honestly bring myself to do it. ColorWasher deserves all five, and that’s what it gets.
(all green)
Copyright © 2003