Photo Processing - Brightness and Unsharp Mask

[Wilhelm Sanke]

On Mon May 22, 2006, Sivakatirswami katir at hindu.org wrote:

> There are times when it would be nice to escape the shackles of  
> "Adobe dependency"
>
> Bottom line question:
>
> Is there a way to apply Unsharp Mask and Levels adjustments to photos  
> from inside Revolution?


and added later in another thread (Directory Walker Conundrum) on Sun 
May 28, 2006:

> I always tell people "Oh yes, the other thing about Revolution, is,  
> its rare not to get a solution with 18 hours...."
>
> Of course, only if you don't ask for the Cheese In The Moon... no one  
> responded to my query as to whether  one could apply unsharpMask to a  
> photo in revolution. Like a great sage once said: "You can do  
> anything, but don't try to fly like a bird."


The interest of list members in this area is indeed limited.

Two things I can recommend loosely pertaining to your query are Chipp 
Walters' "convolve" stack and DLL (to be downloaded from his website) 
and Derek Bump's adaptation of this stack and DLL that corrects the 
yellow color shift (<www.dreamscapesoftware.com/products/>). Both stacks 
contain 9 filters based on a 3X3 filter matrix, among them sharpen, 
blur, emboss etc., but not unsharp. The filter matrix can be used to 
experiment with own matrix settings.

I had embedded Chipp Walters version into my "ImageFilterDemo" 
(<www.sanke.org/Software/ImageFilterDemo.zip>) and got responses from 
Chipp and Derek. One interesting thing is that Chipp demonstrated that 
it is possible to script filters (3X3 matrix) completely in Revolution 
without using a DLL, however the execution of such a script is much 
slower than with the help of DLL.

I am experimenting myself with scripted filters, some of which are 
contained in the ImageFilterDemo, about a hundred or so will be 
available shortly in my "Imagedata Toolkit".

I would very much like to see more possibilities for filter use in 
Metacard/Revolution and had asked both Derek and Chipp the following 
questions:

"- Are there more tested and useful examples for filter matrix settings 
available?

- Could such a DLL as "convolve3.dll" be extended to work with larger 
matrices (5X5 etc.) ?

- Would it be possible to produce a DLL to support the use of 8FB-filter 
files (Photoshop plugins) inside Revolution? "

Derek Bump responded to that sympathetically, but mainly in the 
negative, mentioning his workload and other preoccupations.

Chipp Walters has something "in the works", but is rather reticent at 
the moment; we have to wait until his new DLLs and/or stacks for filter 
use are ready for public release.-

Maybe others could chime in here and provide more information.

Best regards,

Wilhelm Sanke
<http://www.sanke.org/Metamedia>