PICCURE+ 3.0 Completely Redesigned and Improved!

I was writing about PICCURE since 2013, as a matter of fact, I was one of the BETA TESTER for this incredible software!

If you want to know what this is all about, go HERE and read about it.

Three nights ago while processing one of my foodie shot for Facebook posting, my iMac asked if I want to update my present Piccure plug-in..

I did and when I ran it I was surprise the improvement the new update delivered!

Is PICCURE + a Good Sharperner?

Capturing a REALLY SHARP digital image depends on the following...

a) A high quality lens with minimum optical aberration and defects.

b) A fast shutter speed to combat camera shake.

c) Able to focus accurately on your intended subject.

However, sometime; you thought that you have fulfilled all those three requirements BUT your picture still look "a little soft". Especially when you view it at 100%!

What breaks?

Let us examine those three conditions again...

a) 99.99% of photographers, including you and me, CANNOT afford a $4,000 lens with minimum optical aberration and defects. Most of us use the kit lens, at less than $300, you get what you pay for ;)

b) Fast shutter speeds? No problem, or we can use a tripod!

c) With modern digital camera, accurate focussing is a given.


To counter condition a), enter PICCURE+

According to them...

"piccure+ is a new software program capable of correcting optical aberrations that cause a lack of sharpness in your images. With piccure+, it is possible to recover much sharper images."

Sound very impressive and being one of the "tester" in the last few months, I find the software impressive too. How come, then, they were getting some negative feed back after last week's launch?

I decided to give piccure+ another go, to find out once and for all if it is a good image sharpener.

My first image...

Can piccure+ Turn Your Kit Lens into "L" Lens?

Some of you might have read my posting about piccure a while back, in my conclusion of that story, I said...

PICCURE  ROCKS!!

From my test I can see PICCURE did an incredible job of removing camera shake induced artifacts and blurriness!

I think those guys at the Intelligent Imaging Solutions might give Photoshop a run for their money in this area.

Like any beta release, there are a few issues to iron out; like it crashed sometimes when the image is a TIFF and more than 70MB.

Instead of just being a PLUG-IN, I personally feel that PICCURE also should include a stand alone application; not everyone have Photoshop!

It has been an interesting test, I look forward to testing the official release!

Well, the "+" version is officially launched today!

According to them, "piccure+ is a new software program capable of correcting optical aberrations that cause a lack of sharpness in your images. With piccure+, it is possible to recover much sharper images."

During my beta testing, I was told that piccure+ can virtually make your $300 lens performing like a $3,000 lens!

PICCURE the Final Release

If you have been reading my post on 4th May on Piccure, you will know what it is and what it can do.

In short, it is an easy-to-use plugin for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, piccure will allow you to restore your degraded photos produced by involuntary camera movements.

And from my test, it did the deblurring very well!

Last week, Piccure was released into the wild and you are able to purchase this plug-in here.

Piccure come in for Win7 and OSX, you can either purchase the Photoshop or the Photoshop Element version.

In New Zealand, the Photoshop plugin cost $127.98 NZD and $63.34 if you are using PS Element.

PICCURE Rock!!

A day ago I test and wrote about PICCURE, a software that claimed to get rid of blurriness in your picture caused by camera shake. During my test I discovered a few discrepancies, for instance; Photoshop's Smart Sharpen made some of my "blurred" pictures sharper than PICCURE!

After I published my story, I shot off an email to the maker of PICCURE; looking for an answer.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a reply in less than an hour!!

" Hi CY,

Thanks for trying us out!

You are right: PICCURE may be equally good like other programs for small blurs (that may not be even caused by camera shake). 

However, we beat them on anything that is a little bit bigger than a micro blur - plus: PICCURE really gives an "authentic sharpness" for small blurs.
 
I did attach a few images - feel free to try them out and post them.

Thanks a lot for reporting about us!
 
Cheers

Hmmm... that sounds like a challenge and I never run away from one ;)

PICCURE Beat Photoshop In Deblurring Camera Shake!

A few weeks ago, in a sneak preview; Adobe show off their upcoming Shake Reduction Tool for Photoshop that left us stunned. The tool selects part of the image, and used some complicated calculations to determine how the camera was shaking when the shot was taken, the tool then remove the blur — like MAGIC!!

Watch the demo video below.




But yesterday a SMALL startup company based in Tübingen, Germany; the Intelligent Imaging Solutions announced their new Photoshop plugin call Piccure and literally try to BEAT Adobe to this magical shake reduction launch!

My View Point on DxO ViewPoint

Early January this year I was attracted by a special offer at DxO for their ViewPoint software, instead of the regular $79.00 US; I only have to pay $49.00 (NZ 60.00) ! It is a no brainer! I bought a copy!

What is this DxO ViewPoint?

In short, these are what it can do...

Fix key-stoning. Recreate the original shapes of buildings. Converging vertical and horizontal lines once again become parallel.

Restore the natural proportions of the people on the edges of your ultra wide photos in just one click.

Legal Adobe CS2 Suite for FREE? April Came Early?

When I read "Download Adobe Creative Suite 2 For Free"  in 43rumors.com this morning,
I thought April 1 came early!

When I announced what I found to my colleagues, they thought I was joking; but their skepticism turned to excitement and we were all wondering why Adobe do that!

No doubt their CS2 Creative Suite is OLD, but it is still a very powerful software suite to reckon with!

We have been using the same suite for years at work and it cope whatever we want it to do beautifully!

I know, I know; Adobe's latest is the vastly "bloated" CS6, but do we REALLY need all that bell and whistles?  ;)