Has anyone been able to get anything useful out of Pixel Targeting yet?

[Glen Barrington]

I'm not sure I'm seeing what this does yet. I've read the help file and I think I understand the purpose, overall. I've been trying to make some BIG global changes with it just to see where the limits are. (Big changes then eventually narrow down to little ones) And When I make changes to the PT sliders, I can see the little B&W image change quite a bit, but when I hit "Apply" nothing happens (that I can see). Am I making inappropriate assumptions? Are there specific TYPES of images that this works on?

[Tony L]

Hi Glen, I'm the developer at ACD who wrote the pixel targeting feature. There seems to be some confusion about what the tool does so hopefully I can give a good explanation here.
The basic idea of the pixel targeting feature is that it lets you target which pixels the filter you're currently working with will affect in the image. It's not a tool that does something to the image, it's a tool that lets you target where an image filter gets applied to the image.

For example, if I'm in the exposure filter and I move the exposure slider up, every pixel in the image has it's exposure adjusted. Let's say you only wanted to brighten a blue sky in an image. To do that you'd open the pixel targeting window and set every color slider to 0, that means no pixels are being targeted. Now move up the blue slider and you should see the exposure being increased only in the blue sky.

The "Targeted Tones" sliders let you chose pixels to target based on their brightness. The "Targeted Colors" sliders let you pick which colors you want to affect with the current filter. The Target Skin slider allows you to target the effect on skin tones, or avoid skin tones depending on whether it's positive or negative.

The Target Mask shows you a preview of the mask that is going to be used to apply the filter to the image. By default all the sliders are set to the max so it's targeting everything and the mask is white. Once you start moving sliders you should see the mask change in real-time, showing you where your filter will affect the image.

Depending on the image and what you're trying to do, pixel targeting can be great, or not so great. The place where it really shines though, is when you combine it with brushing. I have an image with a tree full of green leaves in front of a red house. Let's say I want to increase the exposure of the green leaves and touch nothing else in the image. I increase the exposure, turn on pixel targeting, leave the targeted tone sliders at their max and move all the targeted color sliders down except for the green. Now all the green pixels in the image get brighter, but I've got grass and other green things in the image that I don't want to touch. Now I open the brush panel and start brushing on my targeted exposure adjustment on the leaves. It works like magic!

Let me know if you have any other questions. Years ago I used to be quite active in the forum but it's been quite a while since I've posted anything. I'm hoping to get more involved again.

Tony.

[wiseman]

Thank you Tony for shedding additional light on the use of this new feature.

[Glen Barrington]

Yes thanks!

[SCX]

So it's some NIK-U-point-like tool? But not in the RAW-converter, right?

[Tony L]

Yes, I believe it accomplishes the same sort of thing as U-point. No, it's not in Develop mode, just Edit mode.

I'd like to put it in Develop mode, but it would get very complicated. Think about a situation where you enter Develop mode and use pixel targeting with the exposure slider to target blues and brighten the sky in an image. Now if you move the white balance slider the blue sky might turn yellow. Does that mean the blue area you previously targeted with the pixel targeting should change? Should the exposure adjustment now move to another area? Develop mode doesn't have the concept of an order of operations like Edit mode does. There are other complications as well. Does every control in develop mode need it's own set of pixel targeting controls? The idea of adding pixel targeting to develop mode is intriguing, but I haven't thought of a way to make it work yet.

Tony.

[Glen Barrington]

So it's some NIK-U-point-like tool? But not in the RAW-converter, right?

I don't know what NIK-U-point is. But is it only in the edit tab. Based on my (Very) limited knowledge of how graphics programs work, I suspect it could eventually be ported over to the Develop tab if ACDSee wanted to do that.

I'm finally starting to get SOME results out of it. This isn't an easy tool to learn, it is available in all menu selections found in Exposure/Lighting, Color, and Detail (With the exception of Dodge&Burn and the Detail brush). It's going to take some time to learn which menu selection will benefit (for a given photo) from Pixel Targeting. Not every selection works equally well with every photo.

Tony is correct in that the masking brushes seem to make a great compliment to P.T. in that it seems to help target areas of effect with greater specificity. But this is NOT a tool most people will gravitate to quickly and easily.

Plus, by having it in the Edit tab only, it might start shifting emphasis of post processing efforts away from Raw to a more bit mapped PP workflow. A heavy user of Pixel targeting might well use the Develop tab as only a way to get the proper exposure while other edits might get saved for the Edit tab.

[SCX]

The U-points were in Capture NX2. Unfortunately it will not be developed anymore, because Google bought NIK. The U-points made a selection based on color, brightness and maybe other stuff you placed them in the image. You could copy the U-points to other areas, or make new ones to exclude areas from the changes of other U-points. There are videos on youtube. It was a very easy way to alter images. The ACDSee Equalizers come close to them, but they work on the whole image.

In CNX2 were different sections in the RAW-converter. First came the camera settings, which is obviously only possible for converters of the camera manufacturer, then came the real converter, then came the U-points. But the U-points were also non-destructiv. You could change the settings of the previous sections and the U-points where changed likewise. Maybe those sections could be done in ACDSee Pro too. But I guess, it would be very complicated. Maybe it would be better to at least combine all of the existing tools with the selections (adjustment brush ...) of the converter.

[Glen Barrington]

Just so you guys know, I wrote an article that was a sort of a cross between a review and a how to get started article for my not for profit personal blog. I'm finally getting some results I like, but the results are very subtle. This is NOT a tool that you can learn to be proficient with in a week. I think I was fair, I tried to be so.

http://glenbarrington.blogspot.com/2014/10/getting-started-with-acdsees-pixel.html

[Bobbert]

Good article Glen, but why not just use a gradient in develop mode, or the develop brush to accomplish the same thing?

[Glen Barrington]

Good article Glen, but why not just use a gradient in develop mode, or the develop brush to accomplish the same thing?

Because I wasn't writing about the gradient mode! Consider it just one more tool in the box.

[Glen Barrington]

Just an FYI, now that I've been using this Pixel Targeting tool for a little over a week now. I feel I need to state how useful I think this tool is. Yes, it is a total PITA to learn, but it is very much worth the effort to be able to target specific pixels that contain certain color and lighting information..

I have gone back as far as 2004 and re-examined photos that had previously considered 'done' and I have surprised myself at just how much more quality and emotional content there is to squeeze out of those old Canon G3 files. I really think if you haven't taken the time to learn this tool, you should set aside some time. I estimate that it took me about 12 hours total to get comfortable with it.

Edit: I need to revise my estimate at how long it took to get comfortable with Pixel Targeting. It was closer to about 6 hours. I would say that I am 156 times worse at numerical estimates than the average person.

[sunnydutch]

Hello,

I agree that's a complcated tool. First of all starting with all sliders set to maximum is not helpfull. I start with pushing them all back to min. Can't you have a preference setting for this?

Moreover what I am really missomg is a color pick tool (I miss this almost every where in the product). That would be very helpfull. In stead of guessing you can click on the image and have a reference..

[acd54]

Tony, how are you. I am currently using ACDSee Pro 3 and thinking about upgrading to Pro8 for the Pixel Targeting feature. I am trying to change the color of the hockey boards on the attached picture to blue (I showed how I converted one tub from green to blue, I want to convert the white one to blue as well) but can't seem to get pixel targeting to work when the desired color is white (I guess because white is really ALL colors). Is there a way to make this work.

[Tony L]

Hi, turning white to blue probably won't work with the same technique you used to turn green to blue. What I might try is going to the color balance tool and reducing the red and green sliders. This should make the white board turn blue, along with everything else in the image. Now turn on pixel targeting and use the Targeted Tones sliders instead of the Targeted Colors sliders. Reduce the darker tones and leave the bright sliders up. That should target just the bright parts of the image. Now you can turn on the brush and just brush over the white board.

Using the Curves or Levels tools might also work, and even give better results, but I think this will do what you want.

Tony.