Image Enhancement

Page Prints and StoryBooks contain photographs as well as artwork and backgrounds. These items are combined into a single page. We cannot enhance photographs without adversely affecting the artwork and background. Consequently, we recommend enhancing your photos prior to printing your StoryBook or Page Print. Enhancing photographs ensures that exposure and color are correct, red-eye is removed, and the image is sharpened, if necessary. StoryBook Creator includes complete image enhancement features to make these improvements.Another approach is to enhance photos prior to importing them into StoryBook Creator. Making changes prior to bringing photos into StoryBook Creator allows you to share the enhanced photo, even if it is not part of a completed StoryBook. Memory Manager, as well as various image enhancement programs, is designed to make enhancements.

In the past I have used Adobe Photoshop, which is a professional image editing program that sells for nearly $700. I started using this program prior to Memory Manager and StoryBook Creator and have become reasonably adept at editing photos with Photoshop. The process was still very time consuming, as I had to individually review and edit each photo. For a trip or event with several hundred photos this editing process could easily take several hours.

20090924_Image EnhancementI recently discovered a far better solution. Image Editor from Colour Science has a batch processing mode that allows me to avoid tedious, manual editing of each image. I now spend more time creating StoryBooks and journaling my stories.

Image Editor does not replace either Memory Manager or StoryBook Creator. Instead, Image Editor works with Memory Manager and StoryBook Creator to allow photo enhancement before bringing photos into either program. Image Editor has no ability to track, label, and archive photos and cannot create unique StoryBooks, Page Prints, and other products.

The downside of Image Editor is that it has a lot of features and requires some trial and error to determine the appropriate settings. A free 20 day trail is available from Colour Science and the program costs $65 for the home version and $115 for the standard version.

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About Mark Mizen

I have over twenty years professional experience in all aspects of photography and digital imaging. I am Chair of the ISO WG5 TG2 committee responsible for physical properties and durability of imaging material and am currently with HID Global working on systems for security printing for IDs, licenses, and credit cards. Previously, I was Director of Digital Development at Creative Memories from 2009 to 2012 and was responsible for the Creative Memories digital products and services. I also established and directed the Creative Memories Technology Center, which evaluated new products prior to product introduction, assisted with production difficulties, and provided technical information to support product sales.
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7 Responses to Image Enhancement

  1. Sandy says:

    Just curious, Mark, about redundancy. I do take LOTS of photos and manage and edit them in MM3.0. It doesn’t take me look to enhance them…maybe 10-15 seconds each with the auto color and contrast. How will this program make it faster? I’m not sure when reading the explanation how it works. And is there a tutorial…I tend to self-teach rather than read but if too complicated (ie Photo Shop) I don’t tend to bother. Just having edited over 2000 photos from a UK trip, I am always looking for ways to save time.

  2. Mark Mizen says:

    This program allows you to enhance all photos in a set in one step. If you are satisfied with the procedures in Memory Manager, then you do not need this program. In my case, if I go on vacation for a week and shoot 1000 photos, it would require 167 minutes to enhance the photos, if I could do it in 10 seconds per photo. I would rather batch process these and work on something else while the computer automatically enhances the entire set.

    • Sandy says:

      Well, it is always nice to have a program doing the editing/enhancing while I do something else! Not having seen the program work, I am not sure if it is for me but it sounds like it could be. Perhaps the trial would be good and I can decide then. When you say “set” are you talking about all 1000 photos are being enhanced as a batch or do you do it in smaller groups? And after the program enhances, how satisfied are you with the results? I did the auto populate in StoryBook recently for the first time and was less than thrilled with the results (pictures that were horizontal stuck in vertical spaces, not enough photos per page, etc) and had to go back and adjust anyway. I worry that when software does some stuff, it results in less than satisfactory product that needs additional work and time. It might have saved me some time but not enough to make me eager to do it again.

  3. Mark Mizen says:

    I typically autoenhance all 1000 photos as a batch. Perhaps 10 of those will need to be manually adjusted.

    Mark

  4. Pingback: Effective Photo Editing | All About Images Blog

  5. Mark Mizen says:

    Colour Science appears to be out of business.

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