Olympus E-450 Digital SLR Announced: Sprinkles Art Filters on E-420 Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 Review: “They’re Going To Sell A Lot Of These”

Nik Software’s Viveza Review: Color Editing Made Simple

0 comments

Posted by Patrick on Apr 1, 2009 in Featured Content, Software

Interested in cameras, photographers, and tutorials? Then consider subscribing to our RSS feed to stay up to date on the latest in photography related news at Neutralday.com

Editing photos can quickly become a tedious task, especially when it comes to selective-type edits, because for all of it’s incredible power, Adobe Photoshop still mostly applies brute force when it comes to making creative or corrective edits. Yes, certain tools can pick up on one characteristic or another, but making multiple selective edits quickly leads to a series of masks and more masks, and we all know how painstaking some of these masks can be. Things aren’t too much better in Lightroom or Aperture and frequently photographers will get frustrated by the lack of real power that something like Lightroom’s adjustment brushes have, and end up editing in Photoshop anyway.

Now… imagine just clicking on a point in your photo, a blue sky for instance, and just by moving some sliders, you could adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth, and color of that sky without effecting at all the tree sharing space with the sky, and all with no masks. Moving on from the sky, you click on the grass on a far away hill, add some brightness, add some green, a barn needs to be more of a focal point, you brighten just the red side of it, removing a bit of saturation, and on and on, again all with no masking. Well that would be pretty cool, and that’s essentially the type of workflow that Nik Software’s Viveza provides.

Technology/Workflow

It all works using Nik’s “U Point” technology to drop “Color Control Points” on colors or objects in your photographs. A control point when dropped or clicked on reveals a series of sliders that are then manipualated to selectively edit the area under the point. All you have to do is slide to determine the size of the radius that the control point effects. Cleverly (and here’s the really cool part) the control point only effect the colors the point is sitting on, so even if the radius extends into another color (that tree from before) the control point only effects the part of the picture related to what the point is resting on, and feathers the changes outwards from that point. After the radius is determined, you have brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, red, green, blue, and warmth sliders to manipulate to make the necessary corrections. Control points can be unlimited in number, and further, can be stacked and layered to give additional results. A menu allows for monitoring of all of your control points, and the points can even be duplicated (which speeds up the workflow) or if need be, deleted.

Interface

Smartly, Nik has designed Viveza’s interface to stay mostly out of your way. Working as a plugin for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Apple’s Aperture, Viveza works in its own self contained window with a viewing area dominating most of the visual space. A control panel rests on the right hand side, where users can select a new control point, view a menu of existing control points, and utilize a handy loupe view of the image. Up top are just a few simple tools (move, zoom, select) as well as a few options for different image views (full image, split screen, and before/after). All of this is for the best, as Viveza is mostly about the user and the control points.

Verdict

Of course it’s only fair to explore the negative side of Viveza, but honestly the only real negative is the price. Nik Software sells Viveza for a whopping $249, and for a plugin this is incredibly expensive. On the other hand, Viveza is very powerful, very addictive, and unquestionably easy. The ability to make very detailed corrections, or broader sweeping changes with out masks and so effortlessly is worth the expense for me. Viveza earns a “Highly Recommended”.

available at Amazon
Note: Viveza is available as a package including all of Nik’s plugins for Photoshop/Lightroom/and Aperture for $600, or in the case of Lightroom or Aperture alone, $299.95. That’s a huge savings worth thinking about. (Yes, their other plugins are really great too.)

Sample Workflow

The following is a basic run through of some of Viveza’s features and typical usage. All images are expandable by clicking.

The original image, with basic corrections in Adobe Lightroom. Looks pretty good already, but a bit drab?

Image with shadow highlights adjusted, and a brief run through LAB mode, where “apply image” has been used. Then converted back to RGB. Looks much better.

The Viveza interface, nothing fancy here.

Clicking here drops a control point on the image, which you can then move around.

The slider adjusts the radius of the area effected by the control point. Here I want to work on the darker part of the sky.

Once the radius is set, then the fun starts. Editing just involves moving these simple sliders. Easy and intuitive.

Once you have a point set, you can easily duplicate it to move elsewhere by click here.

Viewing area in split screen view. Warming up the sky was the goal here.

Very small changes can be made with Viveza. Here, I’m darkening the hills cutting through the photo.

Split screen with lots of control points going, but most are just duplicates, it can be easy or incredibly powerful.

When done, clicking on “brush” will bring the edit back into Photoshop as a layer with a mask and brush already in hand. Essentially you “paint” in your results. Very cool.

Nik’s menu asks you to apply your changes.

Final product with a curves adjustment and sharpened.

Check out the full size version of the image here.
Taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and 17-40mm f/4. (taken while hiking with the dogs, so forgive the camera shake…)

Continue the Discussion

Join us on Facebook! Become a fan of Neutralday today!

Become a fan of Neutralday on Facebook. Interact with us and stay updated on what's coming next at Neutralday, photography news, and other fans' insights.