Content Aware Fill for black edges

DxO PhotoLab Feature requests
21

Kudos. I find you to be a great teacher. Photography, yes I think we probably have different taste and interest.

Yes. I don’t really do “photography” I never have. I just work with photographs. And any Photos I take are for practice and understanding of “drawing with light”.

As yourself, I am a teacher as well. And I do appreciate what you are saying about photography itself. Trust me, I do. So much so, I made an educational video about that very topic. So I understand very well what you mean. But I also do photo compositing, some 3D work, cinematography etc. Painting as well. I am interested in all of it. This feature request of mine is just another feature request of mine. No more, no less. :slight_smile:

Cheers!

Light as Knowledge: Painting Pictures In The Dark

Light has played critical role in artistic expression, ever since our ancestors used torches to illuminate the cave walls on which to paint, so they can immortalize tell their stories.

The word “photography” essentially means “drawing with light”. Or “painting with light”, as it were.

Therefore, it can be said that the lighting is the primary language of photography, as well as cinematography.

Lighting determines not only brightness and darkness within the frame, but also tone, mood and the atmosphere of the scene. What also affects and determines how much texture you reveal is the angle of light source. In both photography and its big brother cinematography, lighting is critical in creating successful images.

As a cinematographer or as a photographer, you are looking at the world with only one lens. And you need to introduce a three-dimensional quality to two-dimensional medium. You accomplish this, by creating areas of light against dark, or dark against light.

Remember, the word “photography” literally means “drawing or painting with light”. Therefore, lighting being the primary language of photography, and also for its big brother, cinematography, plays a critical role in creating successful images.

By choosing, what will be kept in the dark and what we will light, we affect tone, mood and the atmosphere. This basic concept, for us visual artists, allow us to essentially paint with light. Acting as visual psychologist we provide rewarding experience for the audience, as well as ourselves.

1 Like
22

Absolutely love it!

1 Like
23

Merci. Thank you.

24
  1. NB ICE is not available for download from Microsoft any more. You can only get it from third party websites, i.e. be careful when you search for it or you might get something more than just the ICE installer. The most recent version of the installer is for 64 bit Windows and the file is called:
    ICE-2.0.3-for-64-bit-Windows.msi
    and in the ‘Details’ tab of the file properties it says the revision number is:
    {C64CF350-2D02-4AED-A36C-7B7DD51DE256}
  2. I’ve never been that impressed with the auto-complete feature in ICE, unless it’s completing something like a plain blue sky.
1 Like
25

Nope not at all. How about shooting an airshow with planes flying at 1000kph along the beach and wanting to fix the horizon and have the software fill in the blue sky instead of filling with black nothingness.

There are many reasonable examples. No need for your hyperbole here.

26

for now you have two possibilities

or

note

There was a long discussion in context with the ReShape tool
and people doing panoramics would have liked that content aware fill in function.

  • While I think it to be helpful, I’d prefer DxO first to iron out all the ‘little’ annoyances,
    e.g. to start with improving manual masking (like drawing a straight line …).
27

Hey, that is not a bad idea. I haven’t though about that, but it might be enough in some cases where there is no texture, like sky maybe. Retouching probably better to do in Photoshop since there are so many more and better tools.

I can’t complain about that. Speed, stability, performance and ease of use improvements are always welcomed. I posted this requires in “Which Feature do you need?” because maybe in the next big release like PhotoLab 7 or Pure RAW 4, we could expect some more substantial feature that merits upgrade. Small fixes should be left to point releases in between in my opinion.

28

OK. Air display…

JNA_0419_1_DxO
JNA_0419_1_DxO1536×864 41.6 KB

JNA_0403_DxO
JNA_0403_DxO1536×1025 22.3 KB

JNA_0078_1_DxO
JNA_0078_1_DxO1536×1025 38.7 KB

JNA_0081_DxO
JNA_0081_DxO1536×1025 28.7 KB

400mmm lens, no geometry corrections as yet applied.

29

Looks like a pretty well corrected lens if that is native shots. Meaning in lens correction.

No much vignette or much distortion as far as I can see. What are the settings? Since most lenses have a sweet spot for best performance. Usually the more open aperture the more correction it needs.

Some of the shots might benefit from a crop to get tighter composition, but other than that I don’t think there is much needed. Maybe last shot could use horizon correction.

This is the kind of scenes where going the other way, cropping outside the frame for a more pleasing composition like the first image where you have extra negative space above the planes but are too close to the edge of the frame at the bottom. Not the well balanced composition, but in a case like this where plans are moving fast or maybe a bird photographer, sometimes wants a tighter crop and sometimes the subject is too close to the edge so you want to expand the frame.

The AI powered Generative Fill by Adobe is probably best for this, but its not something I would want or expect from DXO, but maybe just old fashion Content Aware Fill type technology would work well for that kind of shot.

Here is my example with a situation where I was shooting close to the subjects and with a kit lens that is wide angle but needs lot of correction in post.

Here is the original shot. Uncorrected for distortion, but persons left arm is still in the frame.

Honeyview__DSC3580_DxO
Honeyview__DSC3580_DxO1080×720 210 KB

Here is corrected frame in DXO. Now barrel distortion is corrected, but I lose arm.

Honeyview__DSC3580_DxO-1
Honeyview__DSC3580_DxO-11080×720 265 KB

Here is with no crop, so I get the correction for the distortion, and the arm, but obviously there are parts of the edges missing.

Honeyview__DSC3580_DxO-2
Honeyview__DSC3580_DxO-21083×720 250 KB

And finally here is version where I had to go to Photoshop to fill in the black areas and apply a bit tighter crop. Now I get the best of all, but for a complex scene like this, anything other than Generative AI fill would not be enough, because its a complex scene. However for a less “busy” background, like sky or water, it would probably work to simply use “content aware fill” type algorithms.

Honeyview__DSC3580_DxO-3
Honeyview__DSC3580_DxO-31084×720 266 KB

30

See I would straighten the horizon on the last shot. I’m a perfectionist that way. And easy click to auto fill the black edges would be super easy and welcome.

Anyway those are slow jets. :grimacing::grimacing::grimacing:
(By the way I’m at an airshow today.)

I’m half joking but also half serious. That last pic I would click auto horizon and it would straighten that automatically with one click. One more click for content aware fill ans k don’t have to crop it if I don’t want to.

Anyway that’s fundamentally what this request is about. Again you don’t have to vote for it. You also don’t have to poo-poo others ideas.

31

Thanks. I have voted now.

1 Like
32

There are a lot of photographers complaining about not being able to live on their work today BUT there are some that really can. At least some that are not just photographers but also good businessmen seems to do pretty well. What has struck me too is that images often gives a far bigger impression on me if they are of reasonable big size - regardless of the motif. That also made me to buy an A2-printer when I upgraded my old A3-printer. I also felt I really needed it since the flat I moved in to last years has 3,5 meters to the ceiling. An A4 or even an A3 on a wall like that is like putting up a “stamp” on the wall often.

I´m really pleased by the technical image quality coming out of my Epson P900 - the matte black is really like velvet on Fine Art-paper (and another very nice thing with their new printhead tech is that I haven´t had a single problem with clogged nozzles - despite I have seized to do any nozzle checks the last six months. Zero administration.)

I wonder why size is not discussed more in depth since it seems really to matter.

One that really have pushed it is the Australian photographer Petet Lik and he really seems to sell quite a few really big and expensive photographs. I`m not all that impressed by his oversatured nature images but I´m fully convinced many others are.

Peter Lik - Overview | Canvas Gallery

Canvas Gallery (about Peter Lik)

peter lik pictures - - Bildsökresultat (yahoo.com)

"Peter Lik stands at the summit of landscape photography. World-renowned, highly awarded, and boasting a huge international following, Lik’s journey had humble origins. Born in Melbourne, Australia, to Czech immigrants, it was his parents’ gift of a Kodak Brownie camera on his eighth birthday that set young Peter’s course.

Entirely self-taught, Lik worked hard at his craft before making a life-changing decision: to come to the United States in 1984. A chance meeting with fellow photographer Allen Prier in Alaska became a defining moment in Peter Lik’s life. He was introduced to the medium format panoramic camera and given the advice “Go big or go home.”

33

I voted, but frankly I’ve never been impressed with this feature in ICE. The results consistently look horrible in my experience. Maybe DxO can do a better job one day. Until then, I do a better job myself with clone and repair.

1 Like
34

I had satisfactory results myself, but I used it as more of an example of old technology that can do it. Content Aware Fill by Adobe is maybe better, but its hard to control so sometimes because of whatever reason is samples from wrong parts of the image and its hard to limit its behaviour. Either way, its common to these types of non AI driven algorithms. So its not magic, but I think it could be quite useful if DXO could at least implement the older tech. if they can do better, I’m all for it. I think we all are. :slight_smile:

35

… I often find I have to adjust what for example PL keystone tool with View Point 4 produces. The crop it produces is not always optimal in my eyes but still I think it is very good as it is. So these imperfections is not anything that leaves me sleep less at all. If I have to choose I would rather ask them to give me a “Magic Brush” like in Capture One and better and smarter layer refining functions and a Color Wheel that not just works globally but also with Local Adjustment.

Recalling the last major releases I’m convinced we are not getting the whole wish list backlog addressed this time either.

36

By all means. Post a feature request. This is just one of feature requests.

37

Recalling the last major releases I’m convinced we are not getting the whole wish list backlog addressed this time either.

I won’t bother to send them my feature requests because they just have to look at the competition. It has been out there at least three years now. Still nothing has happened.

38

Suit yourself. Personally, I don’t want another On1 or Luminar or whatever, someone trying to catch up what others are doing. I want someone to innovative. DXO has done some innovative stuff, some of it copied by competition. As long as they are busy innovating they are not busy following. So I’m sure they have a backlog of feature requests, but I don’t want a clone of others, I want something others don’t offer. For a small company like DXO if they start merely copying what others are doing and not innovating, they will be out of business pretty soon.

I don’t know if people asked things like DXO Wide Gamut color space. But its a really innovative, useful feature to have. That is what I want DXO to continue doing. Useful innovation. And I think its the only way for such a small company to stay competitive. If they start making same things as everyone else, they will become like everyone else.

1 Like
39

The longer the lens, the farther the subject distance the less geometry corrections. In general.

George

2 Likes
40

nothing innovative in using a color space for some internal operations with gamut bigger than AdobeRGB - others were using such spaces for decades… so it was just following what others did :slight_smile: