PictoColor

iCorrect

EditLab 4.0 Plug-in & Stand-Alone

By Ian Lyons

A Computer Darkroom Review

 

In early August 2003 PictoColor  released an update to iCorrect EditLab 4. As its name suggests  iCorrect EditLab 4 Stand-Alone doesn't require Photoshop or any other image editing application. Unfortunately an oversight on my part meant that my review of the version 4 Plug-in  never appeared as such. It continued to read as version 3. I've therefore corrected my error and revised the review to reflect both products.

 

iCorrect EditLab 4.0

Like all previous versions of the iCorrect product family PictoColor have designed this new version to provide the user with a more intuitive method of colour correction. By simply clicking on certain reference or memory colours within an image, iCorrect EditLab will perform a global colour correction. This review is based upon the Mac OS X version but iCorrect EditLab is also available for Mac OS9 and Windows including XP. At this point I think its important to mention that iCorrect EditLab Plug-in is only compatible with the Adobe range of image editing products (e.g. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Photoshop LE). The Stand-Alone version can be used independently of other image editing applications.

 

iCorrect EditLab 4.0

 

Whilst the main interface "appears" to have changed little from earlier versions it does have a few hidden secrets and optimisation tricks. The process of editing the image is a mixture of Automatic and Manual correction. If the user prefers not to use Automatic (SmartColor mode) then it can easily be disabled and only manual edits will be applied. There are four simple steps to editing an image and each is described below:

 

Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Step 4

Step 1

Colour Balance

When you first launch iCorrect EditLab it will use SmartColor to automatically analyse and adjust the image tone, colour and saturation. The user can also configure iCorrect EditLab so that SmartColor correction is disabled, although this to some extent defeats the purpose. Nevertheless, the ability to override auto correction is welcome.

The initial settings dialog is also the location of the global colour cast removal tool (neutrals eyedropper). Simply choose "Neutrals" from the pop-up menu and then click (using the eyedropper tool) an area of the image that you know to be neutral and all equally coloured pixels will be neutralised. The user can, if they wish, use a simple Slider Tool to balance the Red, Green and Blue channels. Typical neutrals will include such items as: snow, paper, clouds, teeth, car tyres, asphalt, cement, tree bark, and ice.

 

Global Colour Balance Adjustment

 

By applying a few mouse clicks on various neutral areas within the image, such as the clouds in my example image the iCorrect EditLab Colour Balance tool removes any remaining colour cast.

The accuracy of the correction is dependent upon the size of the sampled area. Sometimes we will want a small sample and sometimes larger sample areas. By clicking on the eyedropper tool it can be set for 1 pixel, 3 pixel average or 5 pixel average resolution.

 

Eyedropper Tool

 

The user also has the choice of displaying colour values in either RGB, HSB (Hue, Saturation and Brightness feedback) or CMYK. Simply clicking the letters to the side of the Eyedropper tool changes the mode back and forth and the display for both gives before and after readings. The Undo button will undo the last edit. If the overall adjustment is not to your liking it's simply a matter of clicking the Reset button and beginning again.

Before and after display of the edits can be achieved very simply by unchecking the Preview tick box and then rechecking it again. Since the Preview facility is active in all four tabs it provides a very quick means of determining the extent of the edits.

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 © 2003 Ian Lyons All Rights Reserved