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Power Retouche Pro, version 7.0 (.psd 1/2007)
Power
Retouche Pro is a set of twenty-four high-quality image
correction plug-ins. All of them support both 8 and 16 bits per
channel colour depth in RGB as well as CMYK mode (excluding
Transparency). Also, some of those plug-ins are also capable
of working in the Lab, Duotone, Grayscale, HSB, HSL and Multichannel
modes. One of their common features is the ability to save and load
custom settings, which gives the user the opportunity to eas Single plug-in focus
The other plug-ins worth mentioning are: Contrast – the ultimate way to enhance your bland photos; Sharpness – a sophisticated tool designed to regain as much details as possible from a blurred areas, without intensifying the noise; Lens corrector – comes in handy when the correction of lens problems such as pincushion or barrel distortion is needed; Noise Corrector – Your last resort in fighting with the frustrating hot pixels and noise. In the package You will also find a less complicated but also useful filters like: Soft-filter – for a good software emulation of traditional lens soft filter; Edge line – nicely done edge-tracker; Histogram repair – a must-run filter after the 8 bits to 16 bits per channel image conversion; Saturation – increases saturation while preserving colour relationship; Toned photos – adds a hue (i.e. sepia, cyanotype) to a black and white photography; White balance – a fast method of correcting badly chosen white balance, for example photo taken in tungsten light with WB set to cloudy day.
To sum up, the Power Retouche Pro is a powerful and well-designed retoucher's suite. In my opinion, the superb quality of the output images and the variety of filters fully compensate for the awkward zoomed preview moving and long refresh times, especially in high, over 6 mpx, resolutions. I think that this software is well worth it’s price and should be placed on the must-buy list of every photographer. Pros
Cons
by Damian Sepczuk
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ily
duplicate the effect should such need arise. Those plug-ins can also
apply changes only to selected zones of the image – colour and
brightness range or the area defined by a gradient map. Due to the
possibility to display a live preview in divided variants
(Pict. 1) comparison of the before and after versions is much
easier than ever before. As for the Power Retouche Pro drawbacks,
sometimes the image in the filter's dialogue is displayed in an
inadequate size (Pict. 2). The quick-fix for this is to
maximize and restore (or vice versa) the plug-in's window.
There is also a problem with the accuracy of moving the magnified
image. For instance, you can never see it’s lower right corner
at 200% zoom. I hope the issues above, I have experienced in Windows
environment, will be corrected in future versions.
bundle contains an award-winning B&W
Studio filter which is the best solution I have encountered so
far for converting a colour image into a black and white one. Not
only can it emulate the response curve of the best-known professional
films (such as Kodak TMAX or Ilford Delta), but also allows the user
to define a custom spectral sensitivity. Similarly, adding digital
colour filters is not a problem. Moreover, the B&W Studio offers
you the possibility to adjust such parameters as blackpoint,
multigrade, contrast and brightness measured in
the exposure stops. The quality of the output image is really
outstanding and when combined with Film Grain and Black
Definition filters it can produce a very realistic B&W
picture.
