What software for editing

[gwilson]

Hi,

I have a sony dscp12 and casing however i do not have a red filter (anyone know where i can get one??????????)

I have alot of pics from holiday that need editing as the colour is pretty poor in some, which is the best software to get to do this to bring the colours out???????

[Okeanos]

Cheapest filters are Kood filters, you can buy them HERE if you can make them fit on your housing. The genuine Sony one will be nearly £100.

As to photo editing, many will say Photo Shop, I personally use Paint Shop Pro. Both have their merits and do virtually the same job.

[ahar]

If you want a good, free editing tool then the GIMP is a good choice. It's published under the GNU Public licence so is legally free and can be downloaded from www.gimp.org (I promise, it's not a dodgy web site !).

Not as good as Photoshop, but pretty good for the price!

[David P]

There's a rather nice Photoshop "macro" ("action") for underwater photos that can work some pretty effective magic. See the Adobe Studio Exchange - and search for "underwater". It's intended for "full" Photoshop but can be made to work in Photoshop Elements - I think in both 3 and 4 - see http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10544

[Tim Ingmire]

Tyhe cheapest UW filter is the Magic Filter designed by Alex Mustard. They are gel filters and you can buy a large one and cut it to size to fit inside your housing. The results can be spectacular. Take a look at www.magic-filters.com

They are very cheap.

For editing, there are lots of options. For free stuff search for Picassa - a nice peice of sofware with a great interface. It you want something that can do pretty much anything then PS is for you. Given your set-up the full blown CS / CS2 may be overkill but PS elements may be ideal. You can get a plug-in filter to do the job but that is essentially just a macro that you can do yourself. Search on digital diver as the individual steps are posted there somewhere.

[gwilson]

Thanks just down loaded gimp and after couple of mins messing about with it i have this to show (hopefully)Attachment 2273

[David P]

Nice - well done!

Re my earlier message, I ran the Photoshop filter I'd found and installed, over a couple of good old British pix just to show what can be done - sometimes these automatic filters work brilliantly, sometimes they don't - but it's worth a try. As others have said, there's nothing in this that couldn't be done manually - but it's an easy way of a quick fix!

Before


After


See www.davidp.org.uk/uw/ for a couple more sample images (UK and Caribbean).

David P.