Benefits
of the plugin

Control black in photo editing as if it's a color channel.
Edit the black content of colors without changing hue (black saturation).
Strengthen the clarity and graphic modeling of objects in the photo (black definition).
Target either saturated or unsaturated colors for filtering.
A unique and discreet way to edit color saturation and brightness.

The Black Definition plugin works with these image modes:
8,16 bit / channel: RGB, Grayscale, Duotone, CMYK, Multichannel, Lab.

Black Definition
filter controls

This is the Black Definition plug-ins control panel (Windows). Click on the image to enlarge. The controlpanel and preview area can be changed by dragging the sides.

The filter has three main controls:
1. Adjust blacks - changes the black content
2. Gray include - change unsaturated colors
3. Color include - change saturated colors

In addition you can restrict your retouching to a specified brightness-range or color-range or apply a gradated effect.

Examples:
Original
Black enhanced
Black reduced

The Black Definition plugin gives you a unique and easy way to control the black content of colors.

The left image is the original unfiltered.

The Black Definition plug-ins controls

The three sliders are arranged in two groups. The first "Black Definition" has only one slider, that will add or subtract black from the image. The second "Include" defines which areas of the photo are to be changed.

Adjust Blacks %

This slider lets you adjust the black content of colors as if black were a separate color channel - like red, green, blue. The effect of the adjustment can be fine tuned by the two Include sliders or by the Retouch Levels sliders.

Gray Include %

Gray Include determines how much the plug-in will change the black content of grayish and unsaturated colors.

Color Include %

Color Include determines how much the plug-in will change the black content of more saturated colors.
This control is not available in grayscale image mode.

Retouch levels


Black Alert

Retouch levels lets you control how strong the retouching should be in the highlights, lights, midtones, darks and blacks.

If you check "Black Alert", the preview will mask areas that are pure black. You can change the color of the mask by clicking in the yellow rectangle.

Graduated Effect

These controls are common for many of the Power Retouche plug-ins. Using graduated effect will cause the filter to apply it's filtering at full strength in one side of the image and then fade the effect out towards the other side. You can change direction by right clicking the preview. Midpoint will shift the balance between how large an area will be filtered at full strength and how much will have a faded out effect. Contrast will change the accelleration and spread of the fade-out.

Photographic mode is unique to Power Retouche. It integrates the changes into the original in such a manner as would be seen in nature bu taking into account how light and colour are related in nature.

In this example we applied a graduated effect towards the lower right corner. This removes the flat light in the original and enhances the romantic impression of the sunset.

Ranges

These controls are also common to most of the Power Retouche plug-ins. If you use the brightness range, only areas brighter than "From" and darker than "To" will be changed. If you use Color-range, then only colors to the right of the "From" slider and to the left of the "Up to" slider will be changed. This also counts if you place the "From" slider to the right of the "Up to" slider. In this way any selection is possible. You can also use both controls to edit a specific color range of a certain brightness, like only the bright blue sky, for example.

Mask unchanged will apply the color of the mask to areas outside of the selected ranges. This helps set the range sliders.

In the example below we used Brightness Range to select the teeth.

Histogram, Anti-posterization and Colorvalues

Histogram

Anti-posterization

Pixel data

These controls are common to most of the Power Retouche plug-ins. The displayed histogram will be for the area in the preview. You can choose between individual colorchannels, all colorchannels or luminance.

Anti-posterization should be set as low as possible. In most cases leave it off (at 0).

The colorpicker allows you to pick a point (pixel) in the preview and get some interesting data about it. The d-values tell how much the pixel is changed in percent. L tells the luminance value (brightness) of the pixel.

Examples

Working with Retouch Levels

By controlling the black content of the various levels, you can easily correct dull photos.

Working with ranges and graduated effect

Using the "Inv" button to invert the mask on second run

Combining the various retouching controls in the plug-in can quickly do complex retouching it would otherwise take a lot of effort to do.

In this example we ran the filter twice. First darkening the background with one mask, then rerunning the plug-in, inverting the mask (with the Inv button), and brightening the face and hands.

Mood

Nothing is more subjective than the mood one wants in a picture. Here there are no rights or wrongs. The original image below is perfect as it is, but so are the two edited versions.

One big step towards controling mood is to be able to control black.

Black & White photos and grayscale images

The plugin can be used with Black & White RGB images as well as Grayscale-mode images. Be aware that if you filter a Black & White RGB image, the slider Color Include will still be available, but will have no effect. If the image-mode is grayscale, then the Color Include slider will be disabled.