psst..
Want to know a secret?
Well, it won't be a secret for long.. but if you'd like to be able to have the greatest tools photography has seen in a long time for absolutely no cost, read on.
Firstly, I'm not affiliated with this program though in my heart I know I'd gnaw off my right arm to be able to lay claim to something like this - the creator must be utterly chuffed at what he's done and I bet he giggles himself to sleep at night :)
Back to the point
Content Aware Image Resizing.
Some say photography is about preserving the 'truth', some say we should
strive to maintain honesty in an image - for others it's about making
pretty pics, however you come to achieve the end result. Manipulation has
been part and parcel of photography since the beginning and anyone using
Photoshop rather than a gross image editor will have tweaked a wrinkle or
scrubbed out a lamp post at some time or another.
In fact as we all know, choice of lens, media (colour, b&w, cross processed etc) - even the finish of the paper can alter the way an image is received (it looks better on matte?)
From tabletop photographers cutting out cardboard mountains to make silhouettes of a climbing expedition in the loungeroom to photojournalists putting an extra person in a 'documentary' scene or adding a saw into a portrait, manipulation whether to deceive or enhance has been with us.
But putting aside image manipulation of the nature descibed, what of the essense of the image - a lot of images are selectively photographed to preserve or create a 'feel' or an emotion. At it's most basic, what I'm getting at is those photos where you see mum & dad plonked in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal staring at the camera and grinning inanely. What, are they stoked at seeing the photographer? No, but what would be the point of them having the backs of their heads photographed while they contemplate a serene sunset or ogle a pretty girl? The *best* way these photographers can think of rendering both the source of their happiness AND themselves is to superimpose themselves on the scene that delights them. These photos also double as memory triggers for the subjects pictured.. Sure, the rest of us see these as atrocious images but to be honest, I have not a single image of myself in front of something pretty - no evidence that I was ever near these scenes I record. And to be perfectly honest, I'd rather it that way (!) A lot of the photos I take are of prettier things than me and I'd hate my ugly visage cluttering up the scene.
but you get my point..
there are feelings involved in scenery - we selectively interpret the wonderful beach scene we see in front of us as an observer, ignoring the beer cans and drunken louts. Appreciating the majesty of the ocean or some-such, but when we don our photographers hats we have to do more than selectively see, for the camera is going to capture every last scap of paper, ugly lamp post and towering building that mars our perception, the sense we get - the 'feeling' of the scene.. and so we hunker down low to avoid some fence, shift to the left to exclude the post, fit the wide angle that is going to create an expansion of reality, get close to the water and we press the shutter.
What if there were another way to capture the essence of the scene after the fact - to exclude the clutter, to broaden or narrow the perspective while maintaining the critical elements of the landscape?
Some time back there appeared on youtube a video demo of the concept of 'content aware seam carving' for image resizing. Here it is
or if you'd like to download it and view it at your leisure, paste this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-SSu3tJ3ns above into videodl.org's website and download it (or any other youtube vid you may want to keep :)
right.. you've seen the video and you're awed right?
What?? you don't get it???
sigh
OK, let's have a look at a few examples I quickly knocked up..
Here's a nice scene - pretty girl staring at a lovely sunset all happy and the like
well no, not really - actually she *was* looking at the pretty scene but I wanted her face to show that, and she clearly had to be facing away from me to enjoy what we see so I got her to swing around a bit.
Problem was I couldn't shoot a wider frame because the bits to the left were *ugly!* so I actually shot the original scene like this:
The problem with this though is it's unbalanced - we can see a fraction of what she saw, but the fact is she's staring off outside the frame .. and that to a photographer is kinda disturbing. It draws our attention from the scene and causes us to think 'I wonder what she's looking at?'
So what if I just took the original scene and just stretched it. well everything in the scene gets stretched, including our delightful subject - and she ends up deformed :P
yuck
What happened in the top image was I took the original (the second image) and popped it into the content aware image resizing program, masked the subject and a few other things that would look naff if they stretched, then I selected a few areas which I tell the program to go nuts on - the 'delete' tool enables this - giving a negative weight to those areas, thus allowing the program to manipulate these areas more, then I hit go
Didn't see it ? Here's another example, probably a bit easier to see what is happening with this simple image
too easy, huh? So what's the secret?
However you perceive the concept, nightmare or delight, it's now available as a freeware beta program! :)
So what's the big deal - you say you could do this with a few spare days in photoshop, selecting areas, clone stamping, resizing bits, working across a couple of layers, merging, fiddling etc etc? Well this is a one click application - any idiot can do it, and it only takes a few minutes with really big images!
You don't like my first example..? that's fine, it's one I did quickly - I felt the reeds at the foreground which when you look carefully are distorted and appear to be laying down, don't detract from the image at all - reeds *do* lie down! If I wanted to be fussy I could then drop this image back into PS and manipulate it further, cloning some more upright reeds over the fallen ones - but for the sake of preserving the integrity of the example I left it as it was. Likewise with the second - I didn't sharpen the image at all, I just used Unfreeze GIF animator (freeware) to make an animated gif of the basic shot before and after the magic was done. My main point is that the bulk of the image manipulation is done in one go saving me a few hours - I can work on it further if I want later :)
the main page is here but It seems onOne Software has acquired Liquid Resize and Liquid Resize has been discontinued! :(
However for those who don't like the idea of free software, you can buy it here as a plugin for $114: from humansoftware
for the mac users who feel left out, maybe onOne will sell you something once they make a plugin for Photoshop
But if you want to get it as a standalone program for free you can from here
this one is a definite keeper
5:27 p.m. - 2007-10-07
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