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UltravioletPhotography

Apps for UV false colour click-white balance


Andrea B.

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I want to make a list of apps which support a click-white balance. Not all cameras are capable of setting an in-camera white balance for UV false colour. And some which can do that, don't do it easily or always well.

 

I am assuming (safe assumption?) that the brand specific app supplied for a particular camera would be capable of white balancing UV false colour. So I'm not going to list brand specific apps like NX2 or NX-D.

 

So far I have:

 

Affinity

Iridient Developer

Photo Ninja

Silky Pix8

 

Update: All 4 apps are available for standard Mac or Windows congifigurations.

 

Raw Therapee

Update: Well, no, I cannot get Raw Therapee to do a proper click WB on my D600 NEF. I should have remembered my own post http://www.ultraviol...em-work-around/

 

Please let me know of any apps you use which can WB a false colour UV raw photo.

Thanks!!

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The list will depend on whether one uses a simple "click white" (or a marquee), or has to use for example a curve tool. The older Bibble's (4, 5) could do the click-white, but v.5 not equally easy and might need a curve operation. Their Corel-disguised successor, AfterShot Pro, needs the curve tool to accomplish the task.

 

You can add Silkypix 8 to the list, by the way. It can do one-step click-white with UV images.

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Just wondering... when you say "click white" for white balancing, in any of the aforementioned graphics applications, is this as applied to .jpg format? The RAW import interface in PS has such a tool, but of course this is only for RAW images. A number of PS plugins also either primarily or secondarily support this function as well (after importing the image).
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Raw files only, Mark. Can't white balance a JPG.

 

The Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) for Photoshop (Creative Suite) has not in the past white balanced UV NEFs well. I have not tried it recently.

 

I have some ARWs and PEFs I can work with in addition to NEFs. And whatever the Panasonic raw is. (Gotta look up.)((Answer: RW2))

 

Either an actual click dropper/sampler or a resizeable marquee tool will suffice for the "click-white" operation. I'm looking for the apps which make this easy. Using a curve is tedious. (Well, to me. YMMV.)

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Just added Affinity to the list. Works great.

LOTS of tools too.

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Probably wise to add the operating system(s) these program will work under. Not every one is happy being in a given boot camp as it were. Thus Iridient is Mac and its recent port to Windows has unacceptable requirements as to what other accessories need to come with it (lots of that dreadful .NET modules), plus it cannot handle my older Fuji RAFs anyway so why bother. Photo Ninja is Windows (runs on Mac too? haven't checked). Affinity is Mac. Silkypix is Windows. Raw Therapee is Windows, Linux, maybe Mac too? (must check). ASP is Windows, Linux, Mac - a pity Corel mangled the former Bibble so badly otherwise it would be ideal.

 

I ran Raw Therapee on my Fuji S3 files and had no problems getting the appropriate UV white on them? Haven't tried RT on other RAW files though.

 

If one shoots UV-neutral targets using curves is admittedly a slower approach than just doing a 'click white', but it surely works. If you have a series done under similar light and exposure conditions, copy-paste the settings from one image to another is effortlessly quick.

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For standard installations (not special configurations), all four of Iridient, Photo Ninja, Affinity and Silkypix Pro8 have both Windows and Mac versions.

 

I'm not surprised nobody supports those old Fuji RAFs. That was, sadly, an evolutionary dead end.

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However, if you can get a handle on these RAFs they are quite amazing more often than you would imagine. Fuji's own software with the spectacular name "Hyper-Utility V3" (no less; they must have seen one too many episodes of Startrek or something similar?) can bring out excellent details and dynamic range and Silkypix 8 does the task sometimes even better. I managed to get hold of a legit copy of the Fuji software and it can be coaxed into installing into modern computers. Or if that fails, it's a prime candidate for a VM. I run both alternatives.

 

I have both Fuji S3 Pro and S5 Pro, but tend to use the latter these days because it has nicer handling, better battery technology, and supports GPS.

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Fuji has always been willing to experiment with their sensors. This is good. But it can leave potential new users of such old sensors with no useful conversion app when operating systems move onward. At some point I suppose the wise thing to have done (or do) was (is) convert all RAFs to TIF or DNG ??
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The Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) for Photoshop (Creative Suite) has not in the past white balanced UV NEFs well. I have not tried it recently.

 

Back when I started, I used ACR for my white balance, it was really bad compared to using NX2.

ACR has a camera profile editor add on that will supposedly make it possible to do better white balance.

I hear people say this, but I have no experience with that, and I have never seen a tutorial.

It would be great if that worked well.

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Back when I started, I used ACR for my white balance, it was really bad compared to using NX2.

ACR has a camera profile editor add on that will supposedly make it possible to do better white balance.

I hear people say this, but I have no experience with that, and I have never seen a tutorial.

It would be great if that worked well.

 

Here is a solution to white balance UV shots with ACR

 

You need:

 

- Adobe DNG Converter

Windows http://supportdownlo....jsp?ftpID=6128

Mac http://supportdownlo....jsp?ftpID=6126

 

- DNG Profile Editor

Windows http://supportdownlo....jsp?ftpID=5494

Mac http://supportdownlo....jsp?ftpID=5493

 

They can be downloaded for free from Adobe website

 

1/

Use Adobe DNG Converter to create a DNG file from a RAW file

 

2/

Open this DNG file with DNG Profile Editor

 

3/

Go to Color Matrices tab:

- slide cursor of Hue for Primary red to right

- slide cursors of Temperature and Tint of White Balance Calibration to left

post-140-0-79497800-1490173664.jpeg

 

4/

Export your "home made" profile : File -> Export

 

5/

Open your RAW file with Photoshop : ACR will load it

 

6/

Go to camera settings and select the profile created by DNG Profile Editor

post-140-0-26642400-1490173900.jpeg

 

7/

Now you can adjust WB using the dropper tool

post-140-0-01039500-1490174001.jpeg

 

Once a profile is created it is always availlable from ACR and can be (if desired) automaticaly selected when opening a RAW file (from a selected camera).

 

It's not perfect and method can be improved but is this case it works not so bad :)

 

Maybe a better way to do this is to use the colorchecker tool of DNG Profile Editor (As I don't have a color checker I can't try it)...

post-140-0-43052100-1490180386.jpeg

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Steven, thank you for this ACR work-around. This is very good to know.

 

I no longer use the online version of Photoshop, so I have not been able to investigate profiling for ACR/CS.

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  • 1 month later...
Herman1705

You could try Corel AfterShot Pro. It whitebalances down to 1500 K. I downloaded the 30 days trial a few days ago.

I mostly use the DNG 'trick' as described by Steven. Affinity is great tool too.

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ASP never manages to get rid of the reddish overall cast with Nikon NEFs, if only the click-white tool is used. There is always a "dirty" residual red hue overlaying the image. However, by judicious use of the Curve tool one can get a fairly acceptable final result. At the cost of having a rather glacial work flow, I'd like to add. Thus I no longer use ASP (v. 1 to 3) for UV, but still apply it on occasion for IR.

 

Considering that ASP has its roots from the original Bibble raw converter, it is a disappointment it cannot handle UV images better.

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Herman1705

Just to make sure, is that Affinity Photo or Affinity Designer?

 

it is Affinity Photo.

 

 

Herman

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