AnselPRO
Designed to give you complete control over the lighting in a digital image, AnselPRO works on the principle of Ansel Adams's theory of light zones. Its user interface (or two of them, to be precise) is quite complex. The big one looks like the mixing desk in a recording studio, with nine slider controls for each of nine zones including black and white.
There are four more slider controls for the film curve: contrast, shadows, balance, and highlights; and two more for exposure: linear and midtones. There are also two "modifiers," one for adjusting total luminance, the other to control how much of the "Ansel Effect" gets applied to the image. The alternative UI collapses the zones into tabs, which makes it look a bit less intimidating.
Comment
Many photographers find Ansel Adams's zone system inscrutable -- and if you fall into this category then clearly this is not a product you would enjoy using. The secret is to follow the developer's instructions and try not to start adjusting zones immediately. Start at the top of the interface and work your way down, one step at a time. It is very well conceived and incorporates many of the developer's ideas from his previous work. It obliges you to consider the shadows separately from the midtones, and both independently of the highlights.
AnselPRO is definitely a product to use in conjunction with reading Adams's classic instruction manuals ("The Camera," "The Negative" and "The Print").
Tech info
- Plugs into: Bibble Pro (see vendor for version number)
- OS: as host
- Price level: Approx. $20
Sean Puckett
Sean Puckett's Bibble plug-ins are well-known among photographers. Sean is himself a photographer and says that his styles are "wide and varied," hence the great number of plug-ins. Sean's studio is in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
From the same vendor:
- FxAndy - Film Simulation
- Gina - Skin Tone Correction
- Tony - Image Toning
- ...and many others
©trl